Doctor Who: Series 1 reviews
by tookworm
Summary: In which I watch Doctor Who for the first time and start posting reviews.
1. Intro

INTRODUCTION

A/N: Hello. My name is Crystal and I would like to thank you for clicking on this.

I'm fairly sure this story goes against all Fanfiction rules, meaning it might get flagged. You know what? I don't care. I'm going to post it, because I really want to try writing this new project on here. And you can do your bit by not reporting me maybe?

So, I am English. I am very very English. For instance, I view tea as life support, and I complain about the weather all the time. I am a walking English stereotype but for one thing: I have never watched _Doctor Who_. Which isn't especially shocking, lots of people have never watched it, but I'll also tell you this: I know next to nothing about _Doctor Who_ ; and that's pretty impressive if I do say so myself considering that I live on tumblr.

But today is the day that changes. Very soon, I am going to go ahead and start watching. And I will be posting my reviews of each episode here. The way this is going to work is that I am going to watch an episode, then write and post the review; watch an episode, then write and post the review; and so on. I am going into this absolutely blind. I'm starting from 2005, and I will be posting full season reviews as one story, with one episode per chapter, plus a final overall season review at the end. If I like it, which I think I will, I'll go ahead and do the same thing for Series 2. I know I like to read reviews of people watching TV shows for the first time that are a few years old, which I've already seen, because it's fun to read what they think will happen when I already know. Maybe you lot will like this. Just no spoilers please. I will smite you if you spoil something for me.

Before I begin, here is a list of things I know about the show:

1\. It's been going on for a long time.

2\. It's about a bloke called the Doctor and lots of different people have played him; right now the Doctor is Malcolm Tucker (YES PLEASE CAN'T WAIT).

3\. There is time travel.

4\. There are aliens.

5\. Apparently it's sad.

See, that's all I know. So here goes nothing.


	2. Rose

Doctor Who reviews – Series 1, Episode 1 – "Rose"

Well. I can tell you all that I absolutely did not expect that. But from my understanding that was a pretty decent example of what _Doctor Who_ is going to be like for me – corny yet oddly intriguing. And what intrigues me is that the characters in this show are absolutely amazing. Shall we get started?

So when I first started watching this, I assumed that each episode would feature a new character who's trying to learn about the Doctor or something, and through these bits and pieces we'd find out more about him. I actually thought that would be the case until the end of the episode. I think that the fact that the episode was named _after_ its co-star was what led me to this idea.

All right, let me start by saying that the theme song of _Doctor Who_ is THE BEST THING IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE. Sure, I'd actually heard it before plenty of times, but it's just so _exciting_ and _epic_ and I like the fact that it's not accompanied by corny lyrics; it's simply some great work with a synthesizer and strings. (The strings are amazing!) Okay. Sorry. Moving on. I just really like the show's theme song and opening credits. They look neat.

The episode starts off by introducing us to a typical London girl called Rose, played by Billie Piper, who lives in a flat on the estates with her mum and has a job in a department store in town. She's shown to have as ordinary a life as possible, I guess to relate to the typical Londoners?. I actually live in Berwick, which is right on the border with Scotland, so I haven't actually been to London too many times. I know this will shock many people, but yeah, not everyone who's English lives in London or Liverpool! (gasp) For our big city outings my family and I usually travel north to Glasgow, so while I of course know plenty about London and London culture I haven't experienced too much of it firsthand. _I come from a very small-town culture okay?_ Anywho, Rose goes down to the basement to deliver some lottery money to the chief electrician, Wilson, (by the way, why is she giving him his lottery money? Why can't he go cash in his ticket himself? Is he involved in some dodgy business or something) and then every ounce of normalcy in this show is thrown overboard and one of my WORST NIGHTMARES COMES TRUE.

I never liked shop-window dummies as a kid so of course I was terrified when they started to move towards Rose. In true horror film fashion they back her up against a corner after she's been locked into a storage room, and if the episode hadn't been named after her she totally would have died. But just before the mannequins prepare to kill her (with water from the pipes?) a mysterious man grabs her hand and says, "Run!"

This is the Doctor, played by Christopher Eccleston who I love with everything in me because he's just been in so much good stuff. The sci-fi stuff is explained pretty quickly, so I realised that yeah, the monster stuff is pretty lame. (I mean, living plastic? Really?) But that pays off with the witty, rapid-fire dialogue which got me laughing right away.

The Doctor heads off to blow up her job, and Rose goes back home. He comes back into her life shortly after to pick up a plastic dummy arm and there is more of the DELIGHTFUL DIALOGUE and also this great speech that Christopher Eccleston delivers about the Earth revolving.

We're then taken for a spin on exposition in which Rose learns some things about the Doctor after having looked him up on the Internet, and is led to a site run by a conspiracy theorist named Clive. Rose's boyfriend Mickey takes her to see him and while she's in his house, Mickey gets eaten by a plastic bin and is replaced with a dummy duplicate. In this way the episode just sort of got sillier and sillier, and I also found Mickey to be sort of annoying, but that's okay because I loved learning more about the Doctor. I knew he travelled through time, and I knew that he travelled in one of those old police boxes, but that was about it. I loved the idea that he's there whenever there's disaster.

The only thing that nagged at me was that we only saw pictures of him in his Christopher Eccleston body, and I know that eight people have played him before. Is this incarnation of the Doctor more apt to visiting really iconic historical events that ended in tragedy or something, as opposed to his other selves? I know that this 2005 reboot isn't really a reboot, it's a revival and picked up where the old show left off in the 80s, so it's not like those past incarnations of him never existed.

When Rose gets back into the car she proves her observation skills are utter rubbish because IT'S SO OBVIOUS MICKEY IS SOME KIND OF WEIRD DUPLICATE. I mean, he wasn't just acting funny, he _physically looked different_. I wonder if this will come back to bite Rose in the backside later on? (Her lack of observation skills). Duplicate Mickey takes Rose out for pizza and demands to know information about the Doctor.

We never really get to find out what these plastic things are, besides the fact that they're called the Autons and are run by something called the Nestene Consciousness. (I actually first heard the Nestea Consciousness and that made me laugh. Imagine if great big bottles of commercial drinks were monsters in the show at some point hahaha). I read that they showed up in the classic era, so I suppose they're better explained there, but still. But they can turn their hands into ~slicey things~ and they "replace" people. The image of Mickey's Auton duplicate was pretty silly too.

Then we get to see inside the Doctor's police box time machine called the TARDIS, which is incredibly cool because it's BIGGER ON THE INSIDE. And I love the look of it, too. So much better than the ships on _Star Trek_. It's like the tents in _Harry Potter_ ; is Mr Weasley secretly the Doctor? And there is more exposition, and we find out the Doctor is an alien, but I already knew that. I do love how matter-of-factly this is dealt with. Normally I'd have many issues with him being alien and bearing incredible resemblance to a human, but that's okay with me because Christopher Eccleston is attractive and nobody seemed to be complaining about how human-like half the cast of _Star Wars_ is.

After that is the epic face-off with our monster, the Nestene Consciousness, which hides under the London Eye and looks like a giant blob. I didn't find it very exciting, because I couldn't really bring myself to worry too much about the Doctor; it seemed too obvious he was going to get out fine. There wasn't a lot of action, but I love that Rose got to save the day by swinging over the NC and dumping a convenient vial of anti-plastic on it. I love love love strong female characters that actually have a personality, unlike, I dunno, Tris from _Divergent_.

While all this is going on, the plastic mannequins take over London (funny, I don't remember seeing this on telly). They almost kill Rose's mum, and actually do kill Clive. They're a lot less creepy with guns in their hands if you ask me… but I was surprised that Clive died. I thought he was going to be a recurring villain or something, like Moriarty in _Sherlock_ , or at the very least some kind of obstacle. But I guess not.

The episode ends with Rose and the Doctor rescuing Mickey and all the mannequins shut down. To wrap everything up, the Doctor invites Rose to come travel with him, and she accepts to be his companion with the promise of time travel. I would accept too. She virtually ditches a traumatised Mickey in an alleyway and runs into the TARDIS for some time-and-space adventures.

And then the closing credits roll and we get to hear the THEME SONG AGAIN! I just really love the theme song, okay, so it makes me happy that we get to hear it at the episode's conclusion as well as the start. I may or may not gush about the theme song in reviews to come. This is a warning. I have actually made tumblr posts devoted to how great the theme song to _Orphan Black_ is and until now I didn't think I'd find a theme I liked more. (By the way EVERYONE GO WATCH THAT SHOW NOW).

As my own wrap: I thought this episode was a good bit of fun. It wasn't as good as _Broadchurch_ or _Orphan Black_ but I really enjoyed the wit and humour and the characters intrigue me.

 _ **FINAL THOUGHTS AND QUOTES**_

\- I really do enjoy Rose as a charcater; I'm actually very pleased she'll be a main character alongside the Doctor.

\- "And I might well die in the process, but don't worry about me. Go on, go and have your lovely beans on toast." THE SARCASM I LOVE IT

\- "So you're saying the whole world revolves around you?" "Sort of, yeah." "You're full of it!" "Sort of, yeah."

\- Mickey annoys me. Sorry but true.

\- "If you are an alien, how come you sound like you're from the North?" "Lots of planets have a north." THIS LINE. JUST, THIS LINE.

\- I'm intrigued by what this Time War is that the Doctor mentioned.

\- Even though I don't like Mickey, it sort of bothered me how she just abandoned him to run off with the Doctor.

\- THE THEME SONG YES.


	3. The End of the World

Doctor Who reviews – Series 1, Episode 2 – "The End of the World"

I think that _Doctor Who_ 's second episode actually does a far better job of reeling in viewers than its pilot did. Because "The End of the World" is an example of _really good TV_. I enjoyed this episode immensely, far more than I did the last one, even though its plot isn't any less silly. (Well, okay, maybe it's moderately less silly. But only moderately). But there's so much more to it than that – humour, emotions, mystery, and even a bit of dabbling in social and political commentary. It did a really good job of truly establishing for me what _Doctor Who_ is going to be like, I think. I don't actually know. Maybe I should wait until the season is over before I decide. This episode was pretty different from the first one, even though it has the same writer.

Now that Rose has joined the Doctor aboard the TARDIS, she's taken to the far future, into the year 5 billion to see the day the world ends. (Jeez, Doctor, that's depressing, no?) I found out his adventures are totally and completely random, he seems to just go wherever he pleases. I was under the impression he was working for some kind of agency, maybe on his own home planet, but the first two minutes of this episode proved me wrong. And by the time I reached the end of the episode, I was proved even more wrong, but more on that later.

We get to see aboard a space station called Platform One – which, by the way, I really like the look of. I found it hard to believe the episode is set in the year 5 Billion judging by the architecture, but hey, this show has a low budget. We pay for it out of our taxes and I think the only other money they make besides that is from merchandise and DVD purchases. It's okay. Besides, Platform One is pretty to look at.

Here aboard Platform One, a select few groups of elite aliens gather to watch the sun expand, so we get to meet _lots_ of different kinds of aliens, including something called the Moxx of Balhoon, Face of Boe and tree-people. I was raising my eyebrows at the tree-people, I'll admit, despite the fact that I really liked the makeup and prosthetics work on them. In fact, I thought they looked the best out of all the aliens we met in this episode. Oh, and then there's the Lady Cassandra. It turns out that _Harry Potter's_ Madam Hooch will somehow vastly prolong her lifetime, undergo a name change, and a severe personality change over the years. Just kidding, I don't like to typecast actors. It was just brill to see a familiar actor in here.

Things spiral downward pretty quickly as some spider-like bots (who aren't actually like spiders because they have four legs, not eight, so I therefore refuse to call them spiders) begin to infiltrate the base. They start by killing off an alien maintenance worker called Raffalo shortly after she has a conversation with Rose. I quite liked Raffalo from the little bit we saw of her, so I was sorry to see her get killed off.

But the spider things don't stop there, oh no. Then they go and kill off the steward in a pretty horrible way – messing around with the sun filters, causing him to burn to death – and it doesn't get much better from there. I'm too lazy to post a whole episode outline here, partially because there were sort of two points of view in the episode going on at once, and it's not easy to jump back and forth between what's happening with Rose and what's happening with the Doctor. And seeing as those of you who are reading this are reading it for hearing my thoughts and have already seen these stories, I needn't worry about spoilers.

So yeah, the insect-bots invade the base and everybody almost dies but they don't because the Doctor is a badass. And Cassandra turns out to be evil. The plot is quite silly, but I didn't even mind because there are far too many good moments in this episode.

The most intriguing parts for me, far more interesting than the hostage plot, were Rose's thoughts and the scenes between the Doctor and Jabe. By taking her to the future, to see her planet burning, the Doctor has changed Rose's outlook on… well, everything. It's like when you're a kid and you find out for the first time that you can die. I don't remember how I found that out or anything, or how old I was when I started spending a lot of time thinking about it, but once I found out that I was going to die one day, it _scared_ me. (No kidding, right, Crystal?)

But I suppose time travelling _would_ change your outlook on the universe – you can travel to periods long before you were born, and to times long after you've died, and that's actually pretty scary. Rose has a bit of an existential crisis, which is addressed both in one scene in the middle of the episode and one gorgeous scene at the end of it. We get to see her begin to doubt her decision of coming along, as she slowly realises that she has gone along with a complete stranger, like hitch-hiking only with bigger consequences. Then the Doctor does something to her mobile so she can call her mother billions of years in the past, which does nothing but depress her more. (And it also depresses me). I think he assumed it would comfort her, because he's been travelling in time so long he no longer has full concept of what is past and what is future. For the Doctor, the only thing that exists at all is the present.

Meanwhile, the Doctor faces a bit of a crisis of his own. We find out that the Doctor is part of a race called the Time Lords, and once Jabe identifies him, she sympathises with him through what I find the second-most touching scene in the episode.

 _Jabe: What about your ancestry, Doctor? Perhaps you could tell a story or two. Perhaps a man only enjoys trouble when there's nothing else left. I scanned you earlier. The metal machine had trouble identifying your species. Refused to admit your existence. And even when it named you, I couldn't believe it. But it was right. I know where you're from. Forgive me for intruding. It's remarkable that you even exist. I just want to say…how sorry I am._

The camera cuts over to the Doctor's grief-stricken face, and that's it. I was left feeling a bit overwhelmed and intrigued, and also this gives me an opportunity to gush more about what a great actor Christopher Eccleston is. I already knew this but I want to say it again.

Then we focus on the alien hostage plot some more, and Jabe dies giving her life for the Doctor and everyone else aboard the space station, which is a real shame because I liked her. I would probably have been a lot more opposed to the concept of tree-based life forms if I weren't a fan of _Lord of the Rings_ , because even though I love the book and the films to bits, the Ents were always a bit of a stretch for me. If I can take the Ents, I can take tree-based people with good prosthetics work.

The entire idea of "the end of the world" on a philosophical standpoint is explored at the episode's conclusion. After having saved the day, Rose looks out on the remains of her planet, having realised that the world ended when no-one was even paying attention.

 _Rose: The end of the earth. It's gone. We were too busy saving ourselves that no-one saw it go. All those years, all that history and no-one was even looking. It's just…_

It's just gone.

These philosophical questions were dealt with throughout the episode, but Rose is the one who addresses them most directly here. That everything is temporary and everything comes to an end. It's not the most profound statement that's ever been made on television, but I enjoyed the depth nonetheless. Billie Piper also delivers the line nicely; it's so refreshing to see her as a character less like Belle in _Secret Diary of a Callgirl._

When the Doctor and Rose return to present-day London, the moment is fleshed out a bit more. We find out why it is that Jabe's scanner had trouble identifying him as a Time Lord. The Doctor's planet was destroyed in a war, and he's the very last of his kind. He's completely alone and goddamn if that doesn't break my heart. I'm always drawn to main characters that are damaged internally, because they tend to be the most complex, and it looks like the Doctor will fit the bill. I'm assuming this war is the Time War he mentioned in the last episode? We don't learn much about it, but I'm guessing we'll discover a little more in each episode.

The episode ends on a high note, with Rose deciding to stay with the Doctor permanently and then they go off to get chips, and the scene is just so sweet, it's actually starting to make me ship them a little. Okay, quite a bit. I DON'T CARE THAT HE'S AN ALIEN AND LOOKS TO BE TWICE HER AGE, I'M GOING TO SHIP IT AND YOU CAN'T STOP ME. Oh, wait. There's still Mickey, isn't there? Crap.

By the way, how old _is_ the Doctor? Do we know? I know Chris Eccleston was about forty when he filmed this, but if the Doctor's an alien…

 _ **FINAL THOUGHTS AND QUOTES**_

\- "It's better to die than live like you, a bitchy trampoline." I wish I could find a way to use this comeback in real life without sounding like I'm off my rocker.

\- When Raffalo said "you have to give us permission to speak" I instantly thought of the Untouchables in India. I liked that the episode explored concepts of the class system and I wonder if Russell T Davies is trying to tell us something.

\- The iPod turns out to be a jukebox. That was hilarious.

\- I really hope Britney Spears doesn't turn out to be such a classical musician her music is being celebrated five billion years in the future.

\- "I'm a Time Lord. I'm the last of the Time Lords. I'm left travelling on my own cos there's no-one else." "There's me." Okay, first off, ow my heart, second off, yes I will shamelessly ship these two.


	4. The Unquiet Dead

Doctor Who reviews – series 1, episode 3 – "The Unquiet Dead"

A/N: I said this in my Intro but I want to say it again here. I cannot stress this enough. _No spoilers please_. Not even the slightest hints of spoilers. I don't even want to know if Rose, like, wears shorts at some point near the end of the series. I hate spoilers and they really affect my enjoyment of the show. I can't block anyone or turn off reviews, so you're all free to do as you please, but I like to read my reviews when I get them; I don't want to have to wait until I finish the show to read everything. So, **no spoilers, PLEASE**. Okay, rant done.

I'm starting to realise that the recipe for _Doctor Who_ 's success as a show is the fact that it can give you literally anything – any premise, any idea – and it will try its hardest to make it work. I said before that it looks like each episode will turn out to be different, and I'm right. It has the formula for success and it uses it: because the Doctor can travel anywhere in time and space, the writers have the opportunity to do literally anything and there are virtually no bounds on creativity. I'm also starting to see just why it's so very popular. Each episode is chaotic and weird, and sure, a bit silly, but that's all right because there's so much intrigue anyway.

In this episode, we see the Doctor and Rose travel to 1860s Cardiff, where they encounter Charles Dickens and a ghostly alien race called the Gelth that inhabit the bodies of dead people. I sort of guessed we'd get to travel to the past after going into the future, and it was delightful to get to see that.

We meet a morgue attendant called Mr Sneed and his maid Gwyneth, and it seems that for the bodies they tend to have a tendency of waking up, _murdering their relatives_ , with weird blue vapour that screams surrounding them. Gwyneth is also a bit psychic as she can read people's minds, including dead ones, and connect with the spirit world, a gift she's had since childhood. I thought the old woman at the beginning looked a little absurd, but there was something proper creepy about her. I wasn't terrified by any means, but it was still effective mock horror. The old woman then decides to go off and attend a Charles Dickens reading, something I would totally want to do if I died. Unfortunately, her blue vapour frightens everyone away, Dickens or no.

And of course the Doctor and Rose – and Dickens! – get involved in the mystery. The Gelth turn out to be an alien race (of course) that survived the Time War, but just barely. We find this out through a séance led by Gwyneth, and let me just say I love how the show reveals information about the war very slowly, little by little, there are no great big exposition dumps. It adds to the mystery. The Gelth are trying to survive by using the bodies of dead humans.

But the Doctor sympathises with the Gelth and agrees to let them use the bodies of the dead people, which is a fairly morbid decision, but given his trauma from the aftermath of the Time War it's understandable he'd sympathise with other survivors. By using Gwyneth as a bridge between worlds, the Gelth will be able to survive. It actually turns out the Gelth just tricked everyone and with the bridge opened, try to take over the bodies of EVERYONE DUN DUN DUN. The Doctor's decision turns out to kill both Mr Sneed and Gwyneth.

With the Doctor and Rose backed up against a wall about to be killed by the Gelth, I was wondering how they were going to get out of the situation and how the Doctor or Rose would save the day, so I was very pleased when it was Dickens who got to be a badass and save everyone.

One way this episode was important was that it answered a lot of questions about the function and linear-ness (I copyright that word if it isn't one!) of time within the show. Can Rose die in her past, for instance, and can the world end in 1869 if the Doctor doesn't save it? It turns out the answer to both these questions is yes (crap), but I was glad that none of these concepts were ignored by writer Mark Gatiss. "The Unquiet Dead" doesn't linger on anything for too long, but that's all right with me; it's a fast-moving show that doesn't care too much about actual science. I wouldn't mind some more tie-ins to real physics – not that I know anything about physics; I know the cat is both dead and alive 'til you open the box but that's it – but if we get a good bit of fantasy science that's all right too. It's called science _fiction_ after all.

Even though I really enjoyed the Doctor and Rose's banter in this episode, and I enjoyed all the fun that was poked at Cardiff, the real star was always Dickens. I just loved it! I really like Simon Callow and it was brill to see him playing the great novelist. I'll admit the fake beard wasn't very good, but who cares! Dickens was very well-written. Even though I was excited to see him when he first came onscreen, I understood that bringing in such an important historical figure was questionable. But they did a wonderful job with him, and the scene between Dickens and the Doctor was priceless.

I want to draw attention to the scene between Rose and Gwyneth in the linens closet, though. (Was that a linens closet? I think it was supposed to be a linens closet). Sure, there were some nice exchanged between the two characters but then, with virtually no context, Gwyneth says, " _The things you've seen… the darkness… the big bad wolf!_ " The line was said with virtually no context, which sort of startled me, but I quickly realised that this "bad wolf" thing was going to be significant somehow in the series.

Huh. I didn't realise there was going to be any story arc, besides perhaps some subplots about Rose's family life. (The phonecall scene in _The End of the World_ suggested to me that we've not seen the last of Jackie). In fact, I would have been a little annoyed if Rose's family was never mentioned again. But it looks like there will be, so for God's sake **don't tell me anything!**

Overall, I enjoyed this episode. It wasn't as good as _The End of the World_ but I quite enjoyed it at least as much as I did _Rose_.

 _ **THOUGHTS AND QUOTES**_

\- "I saw the Fall of Troy. World War Five. I pushed boxes at the Boston Tea Party. Now I'm going to die in a dungeon. In Cardiff." I have no idea why this episode poked so much fun at Cardiff, but this line made me laugh.

\- Why did the Gelth have to turn into these demon things? Their voice was so cute. (In the seance scene, not the demented scream).

\- THE CARRIAGE SCENE. I couldn't stop laughing!

\- Okay, I'm really starting to ship Doctor/Rose.

\- One problem: I'm glad Rose decided to dress up for her trip to the past, but her dress didn't look like something a lady would have worn in the 1860s, that should have drawn more attention.

\- THE THEME SONG YES I LOVE IT


	5. Aliens of London

Doctor Who reviews - Series 1, Episode 4 - "Aliens of London"

I think it's a shame that we're just four episode in and already I've seen an episode I don't like. That's not to say I have any plans to stop watching this show, but Episode 4 really let me down. It's not even the fact that it had a cliffhanger. Cliffhangers don't upset me (I watch _Orphan Black_ ), people - though that does mean the story will probably wrap up next episode, and I hope it will be better. I just really didn't like _Aliens of London_.

The first five or so minutes are interesting - the Doctor takes Rose home for a visit, but the moment she begins running towards her building, we're under the distinct impression something's wrong. How right we are, as the Doctor's accidentally brought her home twelve months late, not twelve hours after she left. Oops. There's some brilliant, sizzling drama between Rose's mum Jackie and Team TARDIS, but after this, the episode degenerates into a ridiculous alien invasion story when a spaceship crashes into Big Ben. Which is just about everything you need to know about why I hated this episode so much right there.

The Doctor and Rose go to investigate while the world breaks into a panic, and the Prime Minister goes missing. A random bloke steps into the Prime Minister's role and the episode doesn't even try to be subtle about the fact that he'll be this week's alien villain. I'm sure even little children would find this obvious. I don't know if it was meant to be an example of dramatic irony, but if it was, it didn't feel like it. The constant fart jokes suggest the episode was largely made for kids, but come on, Russell T Davies, there are superior ways of entertaining children. While this is going on, the Doctor discovers the alien in the spaceship is actually a pig.

The episode meanders on with the alien storyline for a while. A woman named Harriet Jones does some investigating of her own at Number 10, and we see the not-so-very-shocking reveal that the man replacing the Prime Minister is an ~evil alien~. But none of that is nearly as interesting as what happens with Rose and her family.

In the year she was missing, Mickey's been tentatively accused with her murder. Even though I still find him irritating, I was glad that this was brought up, because it's realistic to assume that the boyfriend would be the one facing the allegations, especially since Mickey is non-white. Racism probably played a big part in this. (Ah, what a lovely society we live in). I can only imagine what it must have been like for Mickey to be living in the same estate complex as Jackie while facing these allegations, by the way. Poor Mickey.

Meanwhile, Rose struggles to explain her travels with the Doctor to her mother, and begins to truly feel some conflict between her home life and her life with the Doctor. She can't have both worlds, not really, but it's an impossible choice to make. Especially since she has earned the Doctor's full trust and respect, and has given her a TARDIS key, she's trapped between two alternatives. One life is much more thrilling than the other, but she can't just leave her family. I enjoyed these scenes quite a lot and wished they could have lasted longer.

But the juicy stuff doesn't last as the Doctor and Rose are swept away to Number 10 as "alien experts" for a meeting between people who think they've been beamed up and probed. Rose doesn't get to attend this meeting and has an encounter with Harriet. The episode ends on a cliffhanger, with our three sets of characters - the Doctor; Harriet and Rose; and Jackie and Mickey about to be killed by the absurd-looking aliens. I'm not too excited for the next episode as I get the feeling our main characters will survive (funny, that), and there may be more alien fart joke silliness. To next time!

 _ **THOUGHTS AND QUOTES**_

\- "Bad Wolf" was graffitied onto the TARDIS. Interesting... but WHAT. What does this mean?! (please don't tell me)

\- "Stitch this, mate." HAHAHA Jackie I love you.

\- "When you say 'companion,' is this a sexual relationship?" "NO."

\- "900 years of time and space and I've never been slapped by someone's mother." Oh. So the Doctor is 900 years old? Well then.

\- Yeah, the age gap doesn't stop me shipping them. This should disturb me more than it does, especially seeing as apparently lots of you ship them. WAIT DOES THIS MEAN THIS ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP DEVELOPS?

\- You know, it's funny. I know I would have been a kid then, but I don't remember a spaceship crashing into Big Ben in 2006. Also, Big Ben was still there last time I visited London.

\- I have a feeling the doctor (I forget her name sorry) we met at Albion Hospital will have a bigger role to play.

\- The fart jokes. Just... no.


	6. World War Three

Doctor Who reviews – Series 1, Episode 5 – "World War Three"

A great deal of you told me that Part II of this two-part story was much better than Part I, so I walked into this feeling rather open-minded and hopeful. However, I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one, because I don't think I enjoyed it any more than "Aliens of London." I suppose I didn't enjoy it _less_ , in fact I suppose it was moderately superior to its first half, but all the same, I walked away from my television feeling rather disappointed. And, because I'm so very productive, I went ahead and immediately decided to write this review, meaning, I headed straight for my computer.

But if you've stuck with me through this many poorly-written reviews this far, I reckon you'll want me to shut my gob and tell you what I thought of "World War Three" in detail. And how can I say no to you lovely people? Here's me, shutting my gob and telling you what I thought. On I go!

To the audience's great shock (not), we find out that the Doctor is actually resilient to the electrocution of the aliens, which we will later find out can be referred to as the Slitheens. Actually, we never find out their race; Slitheen is the name of their family, but I don't know what else to call them and it appears no-one else does either. This is because he's not human, but because all the other "alien experts" are, they are killed. It turns out the whole meeting for people who think they've been beamed up and probed was a ploy to get everyone killed. Not that it was likely anyone would have been able to identify them, except perhaps some old companions of the Doctor's who decided to become alien experts? Then again, even the Doctor, who seems to know everything as far as I can tell, a bit like Gandalf or Hermione Granger, didn't know them, so perhaps not.

We also find out that our other two sets of characters, Rose and Harriet and Jackie and Mickey also survive. So none of our protagonists were killed. Oh, what a surprise. Meanwhile, Rose, the Doctor, and Harriet, after meeting up and sharing a delightful return of the "lots of planets have a north" joke, wind up getting sealed inside Downing Street and do a whole lot of running about.

Although I laughed at the chase scenes, which reminded me of the monster chase scenes out of a _Scooby-Doo!_ episode (cue the fist of nostalgia), I don't like the Slitheens as monsters very much. Their design is interesting, I don't actually mind it – the tiny, bug-eyed heads with great heavy bodies with claws – I just didn't find them intriguing in the least. Whereas the Gelth had a totally reasonable motivation to take over people's bodies in "The Unquiet Dead," the Slitheens… just wanted to make money? Where's the creativity in that? I'd much rather feel hesitant about the morality of the actions of our alien monsters, not cast them off as Bad Guys right off. I'll also refrain from laughing at the CGI and prosthetics work, because I know the BBC has a low budget already, I can only imagine how low their budget must have been when they were just starting off at bringing back a somewhat campy sci-fi show twelve years ago.

Going back to the stuck-inside-Downing-Street plot, I felt that I should have felt a lot more tense. We should have had a claustrophobic feeling, very enclosed and uncomfortable, but I got none of that.

I also think most of the conflicts could have been resolved in a far simpler way. If the Slitheens combust when exposed to vinegar, then why didn't the Doctor just get that out there? Couldn't he just have told one of the soldiers guarding Number 10 to stroll to the nearest Tesco and buy all the vinegar and pickles in stock. It would save all the trouble of blowing up Downing Street, and the lives of Harriet and Rose needn't be risked. Perhaps the rest of the cast protested because they didn't want to be covered in those alien guts like Noel Clarke and Camille Coduri? They looked pretty disgusting. But in full seriousness, even if that was too complicated, or the soldier told the Doctor he was utterly off his rocker and refused to oblige, WHY CAN YOU NOT JUST SHOOT THE BLOODY ALIENS. THERE ARE SOLDIERS. WITH GUNS!

If they could be killed by a missile, would guns not have done the trick?

I did admire Rose here, though. When the Doctor told her "I could save the world but lose you," she still didn't hesitate to tell the Doctor to launch the missile. I also admired the phone conversation scene with Jackie. I must applaud Russell T Davies on writing such a well-rounded character in Jackie, who could just as easily have been portrayed as a typical silly blonde mum with no depth whatsoever. We get to see Jackie's love for her daughter, real love. She thought her daughter was dead, and when she got her back, not only did she have a whole lot to learn, she also had to say goodbye to her again. Jackie is clearly torn between getting her daughter to stay with her where she'd be safe or granting her the opportunity of a lifetime. What's best for Rose? To stay at home, safe but leading a mundane existence, or being on constant danger but getting to travel the universe? From Jackie's point of view, it's unclear.

The solution to this is hasty: Mickey conveniently manages to hack into the Navy's missile launching systems, where there is a missile (that can be fired from their bloody website) conveniently locked onto Downing Street, and blows up Number 10 (um, security concerns?), killing the Slitheens, but the Doctor, Harriet, and Rose survive by… standing in a doorway. I thought there was a difference between a missile and an earthquake, but I guess not. If only this information had been available in World War Two! Oh, those silly people in the 1940s hiding in the Underground tunnels and in bomb shelters during the air raids. They could have just stayed at home in their doorways and been fine!

The wrap-up isn't half bad. While Rose stays at home for dinner, the Doctor tempts Rose with a meteor shower. In the end, Rose winds up saying goodbye to her mother and Mickey before dinner to go off on adventures with the Doctor. When he says, his message is clear, but there are ways to work around that – um, Rose, you do know you have a TIME MACHINE, yeah? So maybe you can have dinner with your mum and seeing the meteor shower any old time?

Meanwhile, the Doctor and Ricky – I mean, Mickey – discuss the world's reaction to the alien invasion. While I appreciated the commentary on society and the jibe on religion (you're willing to believe in something that's invisible, but if it's starting you in the face, nope, can't see it!), I nevertheless found it a rather inadequate explanation to why I hold no memory of this incident whatsoever, nor why Big Ben and Downing Street were still there last time I visited London.

The episode ends on a sad note as Rose explains to her mother that she has a time machine and can come back for a visit in ten seconds before entering the TARDIS with the Doctor. (Yeah, Rose, TIME MACHINE. So go watch that meteor shower any time you like. You could even watch all three extended editions of _Lord of the Rings_ and read _War and Peace_ before going to see that meteor shower if you fancied!) Jackie watches as the TARDIS disappears, waits ten seconds, then turns around and walks back home. I really do like Jackie as a character, as I said, and feel incredibly sorry for her in this situation.

Overall, I thought this episode suffered from rather weak storytelling and a frankly rubbish plot. I suppose it might have done the trick of hooking eight-year-old boys to the show, but then the eight-year-old boys would probably get bored with all the drama. I have my fingers crossed that the next episode will be superior to this, so please don't tell me a thing!

 _ **THOUGHTS AND QUOTES**_

\- Ah, brill. I had to grit my teeth through even more fart jokes and general Slitheen absurdity. I like some aspects of _Doctor Who_ 's absurdity, but not here.

\- A last-minute thought: I really like the way the Slitheen blink.

\- I did admire how the entire sequence of Jackie and Mickey back on the estate felt like a great big parody of _EastEnders_.

\- "I think you'll find the Prime Minister is an alien in disguise – ah, that's never gonna work, is it?" "Nope." "Fair enough."

\- I was far too lazy to research just how accurate the Doctor's speech about the history of Downing Street was, but I did enjoy it as a method of bluffing.

\- Why was there a guitar in the Prime Minister's office?

\- "My mum's cooking." "Good, put her on a low heat and let simmer." I swear, the Doctor has literal radiation waves of sass emitting from him and I love him for it.


	7. Dalek

Doctor Who reviews – Series 1, Episode 6 – "Dalek"

I believe this is going to be a really difficult episode for me to review, much harder than the previous five, because it's such a challenge to keep from turning this review in a great big pile of fangirl gushing. Perhaps I'll get it over with now: OH MY GOD THAT WAS JUST BRILLIANT I LOVED IT SO MUCH.

Sorry. Moving on.

 _Dalek_ continues on with the pattern _Doctor Who_ has revealed that every episode is different. This time was an absolute wonder; I swear that this episode is one of the best things ever written for television. It was packed with just about everything I could want out of a show: action, wit, absurdity, philosophy, intrigue, and a compelling portrayal of central characters, all packed into this perfect little packet of 45 minutes. To some degree, the show has thus far proved it can combine all of these, but until now no episode has combined all of these so successfully. _Dalek_ is like a television cocktail of perfection. I mean, fine, yes, all right, it's not perfect, but it's very, VERY good.

The Doctor and Rose arrive at an underground alien museum in Utah in 2012, tracing a distress signal. They quickly are arrested because they are the Doctor and Rose, and meet the museum's owner, Henry Van Staten. I didn't think he was the best antagonist we've ever had as there was nothing that original or complex about him – obnoxious, greedy billionaire who just wants to add to his 'collection' to make even more money, yada yada yada. I've heard this song before. Oh, and he was American, naturally.

In his museum, Van Staten also has one live specimen, the distress signal of whom the Doctor and Rose were tracking. When he learns the Doctor knows more about aliens than he, Van Staten forces him to identify the creature. And that's when this episode takes its turn toward brilliance.

So far in the series the Doctor has been portrayed as a hero. Not a conventional hero, mind, but a hero all the same. But when he was facing the creature, God, he SCARED me. He was not the hero of this episode, he was not even a good person. The entire confrontation was just _so_ well-written and well-acted by Christopher Eccleston that I've still got chills as I write this.

Because the creature is a Dalek.

OK, I'd heard of the Daleks before, actually, and I know they're the Doctor's greatest enemies from the classic series. They look quite silly, I'll be honest, like pepper pots with a toilet plunger and a wire whisk sticking out of them, but they were imagined in the 60s so I'll excuse it. They're kind of cute, actually.

One thing that nagged at me, however, was that the episode was called "Dalek." Meaning that as soon as the opening credits rolled, everyone (that is, all the Classic fans) knew the episode was going to feature a Dalek. Doesn't it make the whole revelation of the Dalek anticlimactic? The producers should have given it a better title.

But back to the confrontation. We get to learn a whole lot about the Time War. So the Doctor's people fought the Daleks and both sides were wiped out – _because the Doctor killed them all_. Blimey, that's dark. He killed them because it was the only way he knew to stop the war, and then he ran away, leaving his planet and people to burn, and that's why he's the last of his kind.

 _Dalek: And what of the Time Lords?_

 _The Doctor: Dead. They burned with you. The end of the Last Great Time War. Everyone lost._

 _Dalek: And the coward survived._

What great writing. But this Dalek survived, too, and the Doctor's utter hatred for the creature terrifies me. He hates it just for being alive. And then he tortures it, mercilessly, mockingly saying, "Exterminate" before electrocuting it. I know he helped Mickey kill the Slitheens last episode by blowing up Downing Street, but I've never imagined him capable of this degree of violence.

Meanwhile, Rose hangs out with Van Staten's only English employee, a sweet boy genius named Adam. I don't know what to make of him yet, he seems nice enough and all, but more than a bit dull. The suggestion that he and Rose fancied each other felt a bit too obvious for my taste, from the not-so-subtle flirting to the romantic background music, and it's even more obvious since he's a companion now too. I snickered when the Doctor called him "pretty."

But who cares about Adam when there's some much better stuff going on with the Dalek? Van Staten finds out the Doctor is an alien and tortures him upstairs as he means to patent him, while another guard tortures the Dalek some more to try to get it to talk again. While this is going on, Adam shows Rose what is going on in the Dalek's cell via camera, and when she sees it being tortured, oblivious to its evil, she runs down to set things right. I honestly fell in love with Rose in this episode, she's clearly the hero and not the Doctor. Without waiting a second, as soon as she sees a creature she doesn't know being tortured, she's quick to defend it and sympathize with it. Entering the Dalek's cell, it tricks her into touching it out of her own kindness so that it can use her DNA to restore its systems and break free, to, well, exterminate. I didn't really understand why it needed her DNA, something about her being a time traveller, so I'm unclear whether the episode didn't explain this well or if I'm just thick and missed it.

Then follows the action story. The Dalek escapes, it kills a bunch of soldiers, and Rose and Adam must get to the upper levels of Van Staten's base before the Doctor seals some gates to prevent the Dalek from getting up there and killing the entire population of the world. I definitely see the appeal of the Daleks as alien villains. Because they're programmed to kill – sorry, exterminate – anything that's not a Dalek, they're incredibly deadly while also not falling under the "let's take over the earth for no bloody reason" trope.

The episode has a high body count, all Van Staten's soldiers, because the Dalek can deflect bullets and also fly. Why not? I did think these sequences could have been trimmed down a bit, especially the footage of showing the soldier's bodies after they were killed. Effective the first time, but the episode did this _twice_ , the second time for far too long. You made your point, don't overmilk it. We got it the first time. Just a small nitpick. I really did like the plot of this episode, the countdown added some great tension and the moral questions were the centrepiece.

One of my favourite scenes – one of three that is – is the Doctor's second confrontation with the Dalek. Again, brilliant writing and performances. Seriously, if the shows goes on being this excellent, I'm definitely hooked. I want to stress again just how terrifying the Doctor is in this episode, and the morality of his character is fearlessly addressed.

 _The Doctor: If you want orders, follow this one: kill yourself._

 _Dalek: The Daleks must survive!_

 _The Doctor: The Daleks have failed! Why don't you finish the job and make the Daleks extinct? Rid the universe of your filth!_ _ **Why don't you just die?!**_

 _Dalek: You would make a good Dalek._

Stunning, unexpected, and just downright brilliant writing and acting.

But while the Doctor is having a moral dilemma, the Dalek is having an existential and identity crisis. Because with Rose's DNA it gained the concept of morality, a conscience. It's not sure it wants to kill everyone anymore. It has _changed_. It fails to kill Rose, and it fails to kill Van Staten. But while Rose comes to recognise this and understands it, the Doctor is too blinded by hate and prejudice to accept the fact that we now have a moral Dalek. While the Doctor is off finding a suitable gun with which to kill it, the Dalek asks Rose to feel the sunlight, and she takes it to the top level to fulfil its wish. It's here the Doctor finds Rose, with the Dalek reaching out to touch the sunlight, and again I feel the need to quote this incredible climactic scene.

 _Rose: It couldn't kill Van Staten and it couldn't kill me, it's changing! What about you, Doctor? What the hell are you changing into?_

After this, the Dalek, unable to cope with its new identity, ideas, and conscience, kills itself. There are now no more Daleks, and the Doctor, as he later acknowledges bitterly, has won. The episode also answered a question I'd had – how does the Doctor _know_ he's the last one? If his planet burned, could there not have been survivors of which he was unaware? It seems to me he has some sort of psychic link with his people, and he cannot sense any other Time Lords in his mind. All right, that makes sense to me.

 _Doctor Who_ dealt with some heavy themes in its sixth episode, and did it ever pay off.

Robert Shearman, take a bow.

 _ **THOUGHTS AND QUOTES**_

'Bad Wolf One descending.' Soo, does Bad Wolf have something to do with Van Staten and Diana? Have we not seen the last of them? (don't answer that)

Why is Rose's hair all frizzy all of a sudden? When did she have her hair done and why did the episode not mention this?

Sorry, Van Staten, but Metaltron is not the most original, creative name you could have given the Dalek.

'Better take these. The last guy that touched it, burst into flames.' 'I won't touch it, then.' The sass with which he says this line makes me love him all the more.

'What are you gonna do, plunge me to death?' Er… yep.

'Release me if you want to live.' The Doctor sounded so badass when he said this. I kind of loved it a bit too much.

So if the Dalek downloaded the entire Internet, does that mean it knows about tumblr and all the weird stuff people post on there? Has it read all the smutty fanfiction?

'Broken. Broken. Broken. Hairdryer.' So utterly random. And I laughed out loud, being me.

'Adam's been saying how his whole life, he's wanted to see the stars.' 'Well, tell him to stand outside, then.' DOCTOR BLESS YOU AND YOUR SASS. Also your ears.

EXTERMINATE!


	8. The Long Game

Doctor Who reviews – Series 1, Episode 7 – "The Long Game"

Do you remember how last review, I wrote a great long gushing review of "Dalek?" It was by far the most positive review I'd written for a _Doctor Who_ episode thus far into my show-watching career. However, because "Dalek" was so good, I walked into Episode 7 with very high expectations, sure the show had taken a dramatic turn for the better. And while "The Long Game" has one or two redeeming factors, I'm afraid to say that I enjoyed it only a little more than the Slitheen two-parter.

I also want to apologise for my long absence; I've been fairly bogged down with work. But now I'm back in motion and ready to review the heck out of this show. I suppose this means I ought to shut it now, yes?

My main thought about this episode: well… Adam didn't last very long, did he? Ha. Ha-ha. Ha. But this episode caters very much to his character. The sweet, pretty boy evidently decided to show his true colours. And my God, he's an _arsehole_. I just can't _stand_ him, so I'm quite glad he's gone. I do wonder if we'll be seeing more of him in the future. I suppose it's quite possible, and I believe he'd make a fine antagonist, but I do believe that the episode's ending suggested this is the last we've seen of Adam Mitchell. Good riddance.

The Doctor, Adam, and Rose arrive on a space station called Satellite Five in the year 200,000. Earth is still around, and we get a little insight into what Russell T Davies incidentally reckons is in store for humankind. Satellite Five serves to deliver news to the humans down below, and the entire place is run by workers and the mysterious executives on Floor 500. By the way, when the Doctor took Rose out of the TARDIS first to tell her where and when they were just so she could impress Adam was the sweetest thing ever. I don't know if the Doctor was aware that Rose had a crush on Adam, however briefly, and I don't know how he felt about it, but by God it was sweet. Even so, the true couple for me is THE DOCTOR AND ROSE AND IT ALWAYS WILL BE.

Anyhow, the world presented to us in "The Long Game" is certainly futuristic, and save for the weird brain things (which unfortunately play a large role) I found I could definitely buy into this world, from the currency system to the bizarre kinds of superfood. I do wonder what the superfood movement will look like in a few years' time. Do they sell Innocent smoothies in the year 200,000? Because I love Innocent smoothies and spend a good bit of my allowance on them every day walking to school. (Banana-coconut is the best kind and always will be!) I would definitely go to the future if they were selling Innocent smoothies. I also admire the set designers at creating a very believable-looking space station. I know the BBC has a low budget, so their efforts stood out here especially considering how much they had to spend.

But we do not get to linger on superfood in the year 200,000 as we next find ourselves transported into one of Russell T Davies' most ludicrous plots so far. I was at first very intrigued, because the _mystery_ aspect is quite good. Suki travelling up to meet the Editor was quite well-done and exciting, and it excited me to see Simon Pegg in the episode, because SIMON PEGG. Due to my hatred of the episode's plot I don't want to spend too much time lingering on it, so this review shouldn't be very long. At least _Aliens of London_ and _World War Three_ had some good laughs here and there, and at least there was a good deal of drama to go along with the absurdity. _The Long Game_ was much like the Slitheen two-part episode in this respect, only missing the laughs and the drama.

I'll simply summarize here: while Adam, being the obnoxious, selfish, greedy twat that he is, goes off to have brain surgery _without considering the long-term consequences of what he is doing because he doesn't actually come from that time period and won't be staying long_ , the Doctor, Rose, and a reporter named Callista go off and investigate the ominous goings-on in the bowels of Satellite Five. I rather enjoyed Callista as a guest character and would have preferred seeing her alongside the Doctor and Rose in the TARDIS as opposed to Adam. While the Doctor and Rose are trapped by the Editor and discover that even Simon Pegg is just serving Jabba the Hut, it's Callista's quick wits, bravery, and willingness to go against the system of her entire world that save the day/ Go, Callista! Unfortunately, Callista's brilliance only manages to emphasise how much I despise Adam seeing as his greed nearly get the Doctor and Rose killed.

After Jabba the Hut explodes and Satellite Five – and, as a result, all of mankind down below – is liberated, it's time for our characters to go back home. The Doctor refuses to allow Adam to continue travelling with them, and after he and Rose mock him for a bit, they abandon him in his house on Earth before going off together. And thus concludes this rather terrible episode. I can only have higher hopes for next week. As usual, please don't tell me anything.

 _ **THOUGHTS AND QUOTES**_

\- 'And on Bad Wolf TV…' Bad Wolf again WHAT DOES THIS MEAN.

\- How exactly can the Face of Boe become pregnant? Also, just how old is the Face of Boe is he's still going to be around in the year 5 Billion?

\- 'I only take the best. And I've got Rose.' And with these words, Christopher Eccleston made my heart melt with love for my ship.

\- Simon Pegg. Enough said.

\- You lot knew I'd have to gush about it at some point or another… THE THEME SONG YES IT IS AMAZING.


	9. Father's Day

Doctor Who reviews – Series 1, Episode 8 – "Father's Day"

Well. I now know what my friends (and the Internet, and the entire Western hemisphere) meant when they told me this show was sad. I can safely say that this tearjerker of an episode certainly had me reaching for the Kleenex box; I'm not heartless and I assure you I not only bawled when I saw the last _Harry Potter_ film in cinemas, I also faithfully sob my heart out each time I watch the end of _The Return of the King_ from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. (It's the Grey Havens scene that reduces me to a dead bit of meat on the floor every time.) But I also think that the strengths of "Father's Day" come not from its tearjerker moments but from its clever plot and time story. It was a welcome episode after sitting through the abysmal 45 minutes that were "The Long Game." (An aside: I apologise for referring to Cathica as Callista. No I am not going to change it; I think the fact that I forgot her name shows just how much I hated the episode). I'll also be experimenting with a more formal writing style, but I'll try my best to still be entertaining, and you can expect a few caps lock rages in the future. But moving on.

Paul Cornell's fine episode opens with Rose introducing us to her father, who died when she was a baby. The scene opens with a photograph and a voice over and transitions into Jackie telling a young Rose about the father she never got to know, as she is yet another character suffering from Dead Parents Syndrome. (A tired old trope, don't you reckon? I mean, we knew her father wasn't in the picture, but couldn't he have left them or something? Actually I think that would have added more complexity to the characters of both Rose and Jackie, complexity to their situation, but this episode was far too good for me to complain over much. The actress who plays young Rose isn't credited, but I want to applaud the casting director for finding a girl who looks so much like a seven-year-old Rose; the resemblance to Billie Piper here is striking. The scene then shifts over to Rose telling the Doctor about her father as she asks to go and see him, as she doesn't want him to be alone when he dies. The Doctor is of course very opposed to changing the timelines, so I was surprised he was so willing to permit Rose to change this one detail, but I suppose if no-one was around and if they cleared off by the time the ambulance arrived, it wouldn't have mattered.

As soon as the Doctor and Rose are seen standing on the street waiting for her father to arrive before being hit by a car, I knew exactly what was going to happen. Rose was going to save her father, and the episode that would follow would be a time story about paradoxes and the effects of Rose's rash choices. I was completely right there, but I was also hopeful that the episode wouldn't be degraded to a standard monster-of-the-week story, which it did wind up doing. I was quite disappointed when the creatures (which, unless I missed something, are never named) showed up and began eating people.

So Rose, after being unable to go to her father the first time, asks the Doctor for a second and final chance, which he grants her. I completely praise the work of both the actors and Cornell here as this really adds to the beauty and complexity of the dynamic between the Doctor and Rose. I've only had seven episodes to get to know this character, but it's clear to me that he _knows_ the risks of the situation he's putting himself and Rose in; he knows that by giving her a second chance he's only increasing those risks; and he knows how impulsive and emotion-driven humans can be. Yet the Doctor gives Rose her second chance, because that's how much he cares about her, and I'll be damned if that doesn't mess with my own emotions.

So sure enough, Rose goes on ahead and winds up rescuing her father at the last second, much to the Doctor's fury. I did kind of want to shake Rose by the shoulders a few times during the episode, though, because it took her so long to recognise the consequences of her actions. I know she was blinded by her emotions and all, but she seemed far too pleased with herself at Pete's apartment with the Doctor. I mean, really, Rose, you should know better, maybe at least acknowledge that you made a mistake. But nooo, it takes the DEATHS OF SEVERAL PEOPLE before she even considers that she might have done something wrong.

I very much enjoyed the scene in the apartment; Billie Piper and Shaun Dingwall have a charming chemistry together as father and daughter that really helps to carry the episode's emotions forward. It was also refreshing to see the Doctor's fury and harshness towards Rose, as this episode took their dynamic to a new level.

While Rose and Pete head off to a family friend's wedding, where they will meet a young version of Jackie, the Doctor storms off to the TARDIS, and we get this episode's greatest 'oh shit' moment when he opens its door only to find out that – oh shit – _it's no longer bigger on the inside_. I think that several of the episodes have had such moments as these, but not quite to this degree. Without the TARDIS, the Doctor and Rose are stuck in 1987 with no way of escaping whatever hell might come down, and hell certainly does come down.

Another thing this episode brought that I enjoyed was the theme of disappointment. Rose never expected that her parents might have been fighting all the time, so it comes as an unwelcome surprise for her when she learns that her parents hadn't been in the middle of some idyllic marriage and spent their days staring moony-eyed at each other. And there's a disappointment in her father, too, and it's implied that he may have been fooling around.

It was also great to see a young Jackie, but to be honest, I would have appreciated a little more makeup to make the actress look younger, because Camille Coduri kind of looked the exact same as she does in the regular episodes, only with 80's hair.

Then hell comes down as the creatures come down and start eating everyone and the Doctor, Rose, Pete, Jackie, and the wedding guests have to hide out in the church. Like I said earlier, I'd really been hoping the episode would focus on the cool paradox stuff, which serves as the real meat of the story, so the sight of the creatures irritated me and kind of detracted from its quality. I doubt any episode could have reached the heights of "Dalek," at least this season, but "Father's Day" was still very, very good. I know the monsters didn't _do_ very much, so you could argue that at least they didn't really matter or effect the quality greatly, but if they didn't do much, why bother with them? They could have been dispensed with, and we would have had the same story, only more interesting. The paradox is a pressing issue enough and creates plenty of tension.

Anyway, the episode then meanders back and forth between unnecessary shots of the creatures banging against the church windows and tissue moments between Rose and Pete. And yes, I'm not ashamed to say that I did shed some tears when Rose made up the bedtime stories and picnics just to console her father. But speaking of which – I felt that Pete worked out he was Rose's father a little too quickly, and I guess I'm just too cynical to be convinced by 'I just sense it.'

I did however want to give Rose another good shake by the shoulders when she did exactly as the Doctor told her not to by touching her infant self. The Doctor, in possibly some of his strongest and sassiest Northern yet, specifically told her – 'Don't! Touch! The baby' – and what did she go and do? She went and touched the baby, and got the Doctor eaten by the creatures. And then she went and touched the key that fell to the floor, despite being told _not to touch it_. I was however quite shocked when the Doctor was consumed right in front of us. I knew he would have to come back somehow, but I honestly never expected this show to go ahead and _kill_ him, quite literally. His death added a satisfying desperation and hopelessness to the situation.

Of course, this story was never about the Doctor. It was about Rose and Pete, and it's _Pete_ who saves the day when he realises that the car that was meant to hit him kept appearing and reappearing in front of the church. It's Pete who saves the day by sacrificing himself and stepping out in front of the moving car, re-establishing his death and repairing time, saving the lives of everybody killed by the creatures. The Doctor's 'go to him' made an appropriate bookend to the first part of the episode. Shaun Dingwall goes out with a bang, his performance having contributed greatly to the story. Bad dying acting though. Dying is hard to do.

I liked how the episode really did have its bookends as it finishes with Rose's voice over about her father again, and with Jackie talking about Pete's death again to little Rose, this time saying that a girl stayed with him as he died and held his hand. I thought time wasn't supposed to have been changed, but I suppose so long as the core event stays the same it doesn't really matter?

Overall, a fine episode of _Doctor Who_.

 _ **THOUGHTS AND QUOTES**_

\- It seems fairly obvious to me that Billie Piper is using peroxide, and I've always just assumed the character is also using peroxide (it would fit her background, and is also logical considering Jackie is using peroxide too), but then why did little Rose have such light-coloured hair? Jackie, I'm afraid I must question your parenting skills if you allow for your very young daughter to use peroxide. Maybe give it a few years, yeah?

\- 'My whole planet died. My entire family. D'you think it's never occurred to me to go back and save them?' That line hurt my heart a bit. I also want to know MORE ABOUT THE DOCTOR'S PLANET AND LIFE. Did we know anything about his life in the Classic series, and all the Classic fans are pointing and laughing at my ignorance? Will I find out more soon?

\- Rose's entire 'don't even go there' speech had me laughing out loud.

\- 'Watson, come here, I need you.' This didn't really go anywhere, but it was creative nonetheless.

\- I don't care if I still find Mickey annoying, little Mickey was just the sweetest thing.

\- If Rose has brown eyes, why did baby Rose have blue eyes?


	10. The Empty Child

Doctor Who reviews – Series 1, Episode 9 – "The Empty Child"

In this episode of _Doctor Who_ , we get to see the ABSOLUTE STUFF OF NIGHTMARES. Good God, I don't reckon I'll be sleeping tonight. I'm certain of it, in fact. Steven Moffat, the episode's writer, certainly knows how to _terrify the living daylights out of people_. How is this show considered "family viewing?" I'm 16 and I'm terrified. But either way, it's also by far the episode I've seen in this series. Never mind "Dalek," let's get on with the nightmare fuel that is "The Empty Child!"

The episode looks like it's going to be an action-packed thriller judging by the beginning, as the Doctor and Rose zip through space in the TARDIS chasing a mysterious mauve object. We also learn that mauve is the universal code for danger, not red as it is here on Earth (we're just special snowflakes) something which made me laugh a fair bit. It is so completely random, enough so to be believable, clearly thrown in because 'why not?' And why not indeed! As the object heads straight for the centre of London 1941, the scene cuts away to the opening credits with the theme song that I don't think will ever get old.

After the credits of total awesomeness, the Doctor and Rose investigate the mysterious crash-landing object. The Doctor makes a speech through a hilarious scene at a nightclub while leaving Rose outside for some reason – I didn't see why he ought to be leaving her when there's ~dangerous alien stuff~ around; it seemed sort of irresponsible, but of course we had to set up the conflict somehow.

Because while the Doctor is giving his hilarious speech to the people in the middle of the Blitz, Rose is distracted by a child in a gas mask asking for his mummy on a rooftop and goes to look for him. In doing so she gets swept off her feet by a balloon wearing a Union Jack T-shirt. In the middle of the Blitz. It's an exciting scene, but it's also reason enough for me to dub Rose Tyler 'Danger-Prone Daphne' because she's beginning to make a habit of getting herself into these fixes. But I suppose that's unfair to Rose because much as I still love _Scooby-Doo!_ (don't judge me), she, unlike Daphne, can actually get herself out of those fixes without just screaming and sobbing for help. Well, mostly. Her level of badassness in 'Rose' is enough for me to forgive her for virtually anything.

I don't know how much detail I'll get into in my retelling of the plot from here; with the characters all in different places it's hard to keep track of the order of things in my review, so I reckon I'll just summarise from here with interludes of my thoughts.

Rose is rescued by Jack, a hot American Time Agent played by the hot, hot, _hot_ and _why oh why must he be gay_ John Barrowman. I didn't know that there were any other time travellers, so this is a refreshing bit of information. He has a cool invisible time machine that impresses Rose, who of course has been utterly swept off her feet by Jack. Under any other circumstances, I'd be cringing at her falling in love with every hot young bloke she meets, but this is John Barrowman we're talking about so I can hardly blame her. If John Barrowman rescued me I'd be swooning too.

I did wonder at Rose's longing for a bit of 'Spock' from the Doctor, a bit more 'coolness.' I mean, you'd think that having a spaceship/time machine that's bigger on the inside and psychic paper would be enough for her, but noo, she wants more gadgets. But she considers Jack perfectly satisfactory in this department. Not for me, thanks, love. Jack's ship is cool, and the Nanogenes that heal rope burn are cool, but nothing beats the TARDIS. I'll travel with the Doctor given the chance, thanks. Then again… this is John Barrowman we're talking about… so…

While Jack serenades Rose to champagne and a Glenn Miller song on top of his invisible spaceship, the Doctor goes on investigating the mysterious object which I have decided to dub as UFT because I'm tired of typing out 'mysterious object' all the time. UFT – Unidentified Falling Thingy. The creepy child makes a reappearance when it turns out he can makes phones ring, and he calls the phone on the TARDIS' exterior, asking again simply 'Are you my mummy?' I found the child unsettling enough when Rose met him, and going by the title I expected the episode must have something to do with him, but I never expected this level of _horror_. So you can imagine my happiness (note sarcasm) when he showed up again, creepier than ever. Yep, definitely not sleeping tonight. The Doctor meets a girl we later learn is called Nancy who seems to know something about the child – and the UFT. Naturally the Doctor decides to follow her while also sort of looking for Rose as a side quest. (I THOUGHT SHE WAS YOUR TOP PRIORITY STOP THIS YOU'RE RUINING MY NEW OTP)

Nancy, it turns out, is acting like a mother to homeless children in the Blitz and cleverly eating the dinners off of the tables of wealthy families during the bombings while the families are in their bomb shelters. I loved the Doctor's reaction to this, but it definitely felt like something out of 'Oliver Twist,' which I really enjoyed. But just as everyone's settling down to a nice turkey dinner, the child shows up again and there's more nightmare fuel. Let's just say the next scene was what made me start whimpering because _no why would you do this to me this is awful_.

Nancy and the Doctor make a quick escape and Nancy tells the Doctor to go investigate at Albion Hospital, which is fairly neat because this is the same hospital the pig in The Episode That Must Not Be Named was delivered to for investigation. I got really interested when she suggested he go speak to 'the doctor.' I honestly thought this was about to be taken to the next level and that we were going to meet the Doctor in the past or future, but unfortunately it turns out this was just a trick to keep us excited and that it's just Gaius from _Merlin_.

The hospital scene might well be my favourite scene in the episode because the tension is brilliant as Dr Constantine reveals to the Doctor that all the patients and other medical staff in the hospital have the exact same injuries as the Child (not sure what else to call him – should I call him the Empty Child? I think I'll stick with the Child but please let me know what his proper title is). That, and their gas masks are _merged to their faces_. Not only is this great sci-fi mystery, it's also severely f*cked up.

Things reach a new nightmarish level as we see, before our very eyes, Dr Constantine turn into a gas mask zombie himself, moaning out 'Are you my mummy?' Not only is this an amazing, terrifying twist, the special effects used are also absolutely brilliant, even disregarding the fact that this show has a BBC budget. The greenscreen used in the Blitz scene more or less prove the low budget, and while I don't hold it against the show's quality, it was refreshing to see a bit of good special effects. And God is it ever disturbing!

Rose and Jack soon meet up with the Doctor, and the episode ends on a cliffhanger as the (gas mask zombies?) close in on our three characters, and the Child cornering Nancy back at the house.

Absolutely incredible, Moffat. This was just amazing.

 _ **THOUGHTS AND QUOTES**_

\- 'Has anything fallen from the sky recently?' This scene. Oh my goodness YES.

\- 'I'm looking for a blonde in a Union Jack. I mean a specific one, I didn't just wake up this morning with a craving.' Beautiful. I cannot tell you how much I laughed at this line.

\- 'I'm not sure if it's Marxism in action or a West End musical.' BEAUTIFUL. Okay, the witticisms of the Doctor have just peaked in this episode. This is even better than what we get on _Sherlock_. I know that Moffat became the head writer for this show in 2010, so this makes me very happy.

\- I'm a Northerner, practically a Scot, so I'm very familiar with Christopher Eccleston's accent. But I swear that when he said 'ain't nobody here but us chickens' I kept hearing 'no beers, butters, chickens' and would have been very confused if I hadn't been watching with subtitles.

\- John Barrowman MMM HOTNESS YES.

\- Jack's spaceship has so many cool gadgets it made Big Ben stop while he and Rose were dancing.

\- The scene where the child makes his voice come out through the various speakers was easily the most terrifying – especially the toy monkey. Dolls and moving toys have always terrified me, and this didn't help. Thanks, Moffat.

\- 'Do you ears have special powers, too?' Cheers for more Eccleston ears gags!

\- 'Are you my mummy?'

\- Certainly not sleeping tonight. Just not going to happen. Sad but true.


	11. The Doctor Dances

Doctor Who reviews – Series 1, Episode 10 – "The Doctor Dances"

Steven Moffat, you deserve a standing ovation. Because this two-part story is by far the best-written story of this show I have seen so far. I know I said this before for "Dalek," but I can't imagine such a perfect episode coming along in a while. "The Doctor Dances" has just about everything I was hoping for and then some: there's some more terrifying _nightmare fuel_ , character development, compelling guest characters, unexpected twists and turns… oh, and more fuel for shipping Rose and the Doctor!

The episode starts off with a great kicker, right where it left off with the (gas mask zombies? Empty children? Empty people? _What do I call the others?!_ ) closing in on our characters. There are lots of eerie, distorted POV shots that are effective but maybe a little cheap considering how we had distorted POV shots just one story ago in "Father's Day." And how does the Doctor brilliantly get them to back off? By ordering them to go to their room! It's hilarious and it actually works. The (empty children? I reckon I'll just go with that) sort of bow their heads and shuffle off, and there's something very pitiful about this, reminiscent of being a kid and being sent to your room. What's interesting is that this trick works with the main Child cornering Nancy, too – so these creatures are connected. The Doctor pulls a good one-liner, and then off we go into the opening credits and story continuation.

We learn that the lead Child, who I might just take to calling Jamie to make my life less complicated, is controlling _all_ of the other Empty Children and there's an absolutely brilliant and terrifying scene where the Doctor, Rose, and Jack go up to the Child's room in the hospital to investigate, only to have Jamie follow them there. Because _oh, right_ – the Doctor sent the Child to its room. So it went. This scene is probably the most terrifying in the entire episode because the build-up to the horror reveal is so cleverly done and suspenseful.

Our protagonists listen to a tape that Dr Constantine recorded of the Child, probably before all the conversions, and this is eerie enough. BUT THEN IT GETS WORSE as the music disappears and it turns out that the tape ended a long time ago and the Child has just been there, waiting for them and being all-round creepy.

I love the way this scene is dealt with as it's a refreshing bit of comedy amidst all the horror. The Doctor has replaced Jack's sonic blaster gun with a banana (bananas are good) and our characters escape in the nick of time. I laughed out loud at the scene where the Doctor and Jack have a banter about their respective sonic technology, with the Doctor feeling suddenly embarrassed of his sonic screwdriver in the face of Jack's gun. Nothing like a bit of daft but clever comedy.

One of the great highlights? The Doctor and Rose flirting and dancing and _yes I continue to ship it with all my little fangirl heart_. I mean, how could I not be in love with these two? It's the sexiest scene the show has delivered so far, quite sexy in fact, and I ate it all up. I was disappointed when Jack teleported them back onto his ship because he _interrupted the hotness_.

Meanwhile, back to Nancy. She reasons that the Child is targeting her specifically, and we're led to believe that it's because they were siblings, though of course it's more complex than that. She has to abandon the homeless children she's been looking after for their own safety, and there's another creepy scene of Jamie controlling the typewriter, making it type out 'Are you my mummy' over and over again. It felt just like that creepy scene in _The Shining_ – 'All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy' – and while I loved the Hitchcock touch, in hindsight this scene makes no sense. OK, so the Child can make phones ring and project his voice through anything with a speaker grille. Fine, I accept that. But how does he control the typewriter? If I missed something here, please let me know in the reviews.

Nancy heads back to the bomb site to… investigate the bomb? I'm not really sure. Only she's caught by the guards, who accuse her of trespassing and handcuff her to a room with one of the guards who turns out to be _infected with the Child disease_. How TERIFYING is that? Jesus, more nightmare fuel. Definitely the second-scariest scene for me, because I was led to sympathise with Nancy so much here, with her helplessness.

The resolution comes shortly after our heroes rescue Nancy in the nick of time. Hume would have had a field day with this episode as the whole thing narrows down to a case of faulty inductive reasoning. It turns out that the ambulance ship filled with Nanogenes was trying to heal everyone. It found a dead child wearing a gas mask and with certain injuries, and _assumed this is what people are like_ , and set out to fix everyone. It's dealt with a bit quickly, but it's totally brilliant.

And we also learn about the relationship between Nancy and Jamie as it turns out she is a teen mother shamed by the social expectations of society – Jamie is her son. It's pretty heartbreaking, and I was struck by how much I'd come to care about her considering she's just a guest character. (At least, I think so. Her story is resolved perfectly, so I wouldn't expect her to return). _That's_ why Jamie was asking after his mummy. And then it's _her_ who manages to save everyone by finally answering him that yes, she's his mummy and then there are hugs and lots of fluffy things and the Nanogenes, recognising her superior DNA, turn everyone back to normal. And everybody lives!

Oh yeah, except for the bomb that's due to fall right where they're standing. Captain Jack to the rescue! Using his ship he manages to catch the bomb in the nick of time, planning to dispose of it somewhere in space. Only he can't dispose of it, it's stuck to his ship and it will blow up, taking him with it. There's something very sad about this, because it seems like everybody doesn't live after all, and Jack grimly accepts his death with a last drink, which is pretty poignant actually.

The Doctor and Rose save him, though, by attaching the TARDIS to his ship, and they invite him aboard to join them as a companion. The whole thing ends with our newest TARDIS trio dancing and everyone is happy and it _fills my heart with joy_.

I want to wrap up this review by talking about Jack. I haven't really said a whole lot about Jack so far, besides mentioning how hot John Barrowman is. Seeing as he'll apparently be joining the Doctor and Rose aboard the TARDIS, it looks like he'll be playing a big role in the narrative. Whether or not he'll have a bigger role to play than Adam I can't guess, seeing as there's just three episodes left I figure he'll be written off in the next episode in time for the finale, but this is purely guesswork on my part. The thing is, even though I'm very attracted to him, I'm not sure I _like_ Jack. I know he's meant to be imperfect, a con man, but beyond that… I just can't understand what Rose sees in him beyond the physical aspect. He's flirtatious, sure, but I think he's a little bit _too_ flirtatious, you know? He seems too obnoxious and sure of himself for me to like him as a character. So I'm not sure how I feel about him coming along on the TARDIS. Only time will tell.

 _ **THOUGHTS AND QUOTES**_

'I'm really glad that worked. Those would have been terrible last words.'

'When he's stressed, he likes to insult species.'

'Bananas are good… good source of potassium.' Healthy Living 101 with the Doctor, kids!

This review could be a little more sonic.

'Who am I to argue with history?' 'Usually the first in line.'

"Just this once, Rose, everybody lives. Just this once, everybody lives!" I adore the sheer joy and delight with which Chris Eccleston delivers this line, it's refreshing to see the brisk Doctor so shamelessly happy for once, but isn't there something heartbreaking in it too? I mean, he's just so _happy_ that he's managed to save everyone, and with the "just this once," we understand that he's not used to it. Thinking back, in every episode so far we've had at least one death. Especially considering that the Doctor killed his own people, yeah, this is heartbreaking. Sorry. I like to fish for feels.


	12. Boom Town

Doctor Who reviews – Series 1, Episode 11 – "Boom Town"

I want to start this review by taking back everything I ever said about Captain Jack Harkness. He is an absolutely wonderful character and I hope he never leaves the TARDIS! I just love everything about him. He's grown so much over the course of his travels with the Doctor and Rose, has grown so much as a person. His dynamic between the usual TARDIS team is just incredible, he fits in seamlessly, these three have such chemistry together and watching them have their back-and-forth was easily one of my favourite things about this episode.

Now that that gushing rant is done, let's go on with my review, shall we, my lovelies? (Sorry. Never saying that again. That sounded much creepier than I intended).

The Slitheen. Oh, _God_ , not these guys again. And _Mickey_. Oh, boy, well, I knew he'd have to come back into the story sometime soon, but did he have to come back in now, when we were already dealing with my least favourite monsters? And no Jackie to soften the blow! I'm sure glad Jack was around to make these easier on me.

While this episode was grating on me, it wasn't altogether terrible considering that it featured a bloody Slitheen as its main villain. In fact I was surprised by how I felt moderately impressed, and this episode does feature two very good scenes. Many of the themes that we explored in "Dalek" arise once more, and while perhaps they're not addressed with Shearman's strokes of brilliance, they do get us thinking about the morality of the Doctor and the nature of his character.

So it turns out that one of the Slitheens, Margaret Blain as she calls herself in human form, from the Downing Street explosion actually survived. Oh, and she's the mayor of Cardiff. It also turns out that there's a rift in time and space in the middle of Roald Dahl Plass, and the Doctor must occasionally stop by here to absorb time energy to recharge the TARDIS. I'm not quite sure how I feel about this concept – the idea that the TARDIS needs recharging is logical enough, I suppose, but it also feels a little silly. It gives the TARDIS too many limitations and takes away from some of its mysticism. I mean, this isn't the DeLorean! There aren't any flux capacitors… are there?

But very interesting turns are about to made when we return to Margaret. At one of her speeches we see her lead a persistent journalist who might Foil Her Plans For World Domination into a lav, intending to kill her, and we the audience are led to believe that the journalist will be this episode's character to be killed off so we can emphasise how ~evil~ Margaret is. Except that's not what happens. Margaret winds up sparing the journalist after discovering she's pregnant, and it's this unexpected sight of morality that establish her as a compelling dynamic villain.

Meanwhile, Rose has arranged for Mickey to come visit her in Cardiff while they make their pit stop, which to me seems a little inconsiderate seeing as it's a long trip to make from London. Maybe the Doctor could have dropped her off in London and then gone to Cardiff for a couple days before picking her up? But I guess they needed to be able to film on-site for a bit, so to Cardiff we go! I absolutely loved Mickey and Jack's slight rivalry, and Mickey's reaction to the way Rose has changed. Because travelling with the Doctor and Jack _has_ changed her, she's not the girl with the dull life we met in Episode 1, and while we have grown with her, these changes must be awfully upsetting to poor Mickey.

Our gang catches up, and even Mickey and the Doctor are getting on all right when the Doctor learns that Margaret is the Mayor of Cardiff and that she's planning a ~super suspicious~ nuclear power plant to be set up in town. Of course our trio, with Mickey in tow, head over to start their investigations.

They catch Margaret pretty quickly, and trap her, through a childish but still moderately amusing segment involving a teleportation device, and our characters proceed to Discover Her Evil Plan. I missed out on/have forgotten the details if I'm to be totally honest with you, but I can't bring myself to care over much because the details are hardly important. But I did understand that they were Evil Plans. Only that's not the most fascinating thing that happens in this episode once we find out the name of her Evil Nuclear Project.

Blaidd Drwg.

Which is Welsh for…

Bad Wolf.

WHAT.

HOW IS THIS EVEN.

WAIT WHAT.

BAD WOLF Y U SHOW UP EVERYWHERE.

WHAT IS HAPPENING.

AHH

And moreover, Bad Wolf is finally addressed by the characters as Rose realises they've been seeing the two words everywhere, following them everywhere. About bloody time, too! I mean, I'd understand if it went over Rose's head, and Jack hasn't been here long enough, but the Doctor is supposed to be observant, so I'm surprised he wasn't talking about Bad Wolf by the time they visited Satellite Five.

But the Doctor and Co. have foiled Margaret's Evil Plans, and soon Bad Wolf is forgotten as a bigger question comes into play: what to do with Margaret? It seems an easy solution to drop her off on her home planet and let the natives deal with her – she's a criminal there, too – but it's not so simple as that. Her planet has the death penalty and she'll be executed on sight as soon as she arrives. This is one of the things that the episode deals with best: the morality of the death penalty.

After a well-done scene in which Margaret challenges each of the four to look her in the eye, the Doctor and Co. decide to deliver her to her home planet anyway, but the Doctor agrees to take her out for a last meal. It's here that the episode starts to pick up a bit more.

First, to Rose and Mickey. They go for a walk around Cardiff, and while I still don't like his character very much, I do feel proper sorry for Mickey. His rejection by Rose is harsh because while she hasn't exactly turned him away, she might as well have done. I didn't like the way she behaved towards poor Mickey at all in this episode. She doesn't want to go steady with him anymore but gets upset by the idea that he now has a different girlfriend. Moreover, Mickey is still too in love with Rose to get over her and move on, and he's willing to put up with the unfair way she treats him out of his love for her! And when things start to go awry Mickey is starting to develop a lot of anger towards the Doctor and I'm actually wondering if he'll turn into a villain of some sort later on.

Next up: the dinner scene.

Just… this scene, you lot.

It starts off on a childish level typical of what I expected from a Slitheen episode as Margaret tries various ways to kill the Doctor, all of which he's prepared for, being the Doctor. But when Margaret starts begging for a second chance, things take a really interesting turn. It's surprising to see this coldness from the Doctor, and if we hadn't seen the side of him we saw in "Dalek" this would have been more upsetting. The morality of the Doctor is also explored through some pretty nicely-written dialogue, because again, our monster raises some good points.

 _The Doctor: You let one of them go, but that's nothing new. Every now and then, a little victim's spared because she smiled, because he's got freckles, because they begged. And that's how you live with yourself. That's how you slaughter millions. Because once in a while, on a whim, if the wind's in the right direction, you happen to be kind._

 _Margaret: Only a killer would know that. Is that right? From what I've seen, your funny little happy go lucky little life leaves devastation in its wake. Always moving on because you dare not look back. Playing with so many peoples lives, you might as well be a god._

The scene is interrupted as the rift starts to open, and it turns out that the whole thing has been a ploy for Margaret to escape, which she very nearly successfully does, but the points still stand. Rose abandons Mickey and stuff blows up and aliens are going to invade the world again. Shit has become real.

The resolution is interesting but stupid: Margaret looks into the heart of the TARDIS and turns back into an egg. It's not exactly lazy, it's not exactly weird, it's just… well, fine, not quite stupid, but it was the best word I could come up with. They deliver baby Margaret to her planet and go off on their time-and-space adventures again. Hurray.

Except of course, for the fact that BAD WOLF IS NOW AN ACKNOWLEDGED THING. Oh yeah, baby. Sorry. Never saying that again.

 _ **THOUGHTS AND QUOTES**_

\- 'Into time, AND SPACE!' This was satisfyingly corny.

\- Ricky the Idiot.

\- 'Excuse me, who's in charge?' 'Sorry. Awaiting orders, sir.' 'Right, here's the plan: like he said. Nice plan.' The chemistry between this team is the best thing in the world, seriously!

\- 'She's climbing out the window, isn't she?' '… Yes, she is.'

\- The scene of Rose trying to say Raxicoricofallipatorious (spelling?) and the Doctor coaching her along is the most adorable thing in the world.

\- I wouldn't mind so much if Christopher Eccleston talked Welsh at me a little more.

\- Can we visit Woman Wept on this show, please? Better still, can I visit Woman Wept in real life?

\- Jack, please stay forever and ever.


	13. Bad Wolf

Doctor Who reviews – Series 1, Episode 12 – "Bad Wolf"

Oh. My. Bloody. God.

What the actually bloody hell.

This episode. Just… this episode.

It has absolutely blown my mind.

I don't even know what to say, mates. I mean… what do you expect me to say? "Bad Wolf" isn't perfect, and I doubt anything will ever be as perfect as "The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances," but for a finale episode, it's ruddy good.

Finales in most sci-fi shows tend to be too loud for me, which might be why I don't really fancy shows like _Star Trek_ all that much. Too many EXPLOSIONS and DRASTIC MEASURES, a bit like Hollywood action films. By the way, I really dislike Hollywood action films. But while "Bad Wolf" is definitely loud and it seeks to make my mind implode continually while watching, Russell T Davies does it pretty bloody well. So I'm impressed. And I can't wait to see what happens next.

"Bad Wolf" opens as it ought to open – with a bang. Davies throws us into icy water because it's very, very weird and we don't know what the hell's going on. About thirty seconds in, I was so confused I re-watched the last third of "Boom Town" to see if I'd missed anything. Only I hadn't and we were meant to be confused. Then the opening credits rolled. And my mind was blown again because – hey! – an episode called "Bad Wolf." So that means it's going to get _really_ important this episode.

Then we see that while the Doctor's stuck in a messed-up version of _Big Brother,_ Rose and Jack have also been stuck on reality TV shows. I did think it was kind of disturbing to have the idea that we'll still have reality TV shows in the year 200,100 but because this episode is basically bursting to the seams with satire and parody I understand it was meant to criticise the sorts of people who run and obsess over those reality shows. I'm saying this as someone who really, **really** hates reality TV, the only exception is that once in a while I might tune into _The Weakest Link_ because it can be a little fun.

I wasn't surprised by the idea that in this futuristic, way more ominous version of existing reality shows. When they evict you, they evict for life! Le gasp! I saw that one coming a mile away, basically as soon as I figured out that we were looking at futuristic, way more ominous versions of reality shows. This was my major qualm with the episode: aside from the Doctor's ~shocking discovery~ and the introduction of Lynda, this entire segment felt sort of pointless and dragged out. Far more entertaining were Jack's parts of _What Not To Wear_ – which, despite that it didn't go anywhere, did leave me laughing and loving Jack more and more – and Rose on _The Weakest Link_. I feel that _The Weakest Link_ segment also went on for too long, but at least it went somewhere and had the most ominous feeling, maybe because Rose was the only one I could bring myself to genuinely worry about.

I obviously wasn't worried about the Doctor and Jack, and for the record, they get out pretty easy, but I _was_ worried about Rose, or at least, as much as I can worry about main characters on shows. Ironic because Rose wound up being the only one who was 'killed.'

I'm not totally sure how to review this whole episode, because after all, there's a _lot_ going on, so if you haven't already noticed then this entry is sort of scattered and disorganised. I'm just throwing my thoughts at you here and there.

Once Jack and the Doctor hack out of their games, Lynda in tow, it becomes their mission to save Rose from hers. Only then of course she gets zapped by the Anne Droid, and I have to say I was really shocked. Normally I'm not very worried about the characters on these kinds of shows. I know, and the rest of the audience knows, that they're going to make it out all right. The suspense isn't in whether or not they're going to get out of their situations, but _how_. And often in _Doctor Who_ it's a pretty clever and original way. Well, most of the time anyway. But I knew the companions switch out a lot in this show, and the situation felt so hopeless that I actually believed for a moment that Rose had actually died. And I was totally gutted.

The scene of the Doctor, Jack, and Lynda being arrested is incredibly well-done. The guard's words muffled in the background as the camera delivers a close-up of the Doctor's numb, grief-stricken face… incredible. You can truly tell that he's so heartbroken that nothing else matters any longer.

Except of course then our boys get to have their BAMF moment when they bust out of prison, and I don't care that it felt mildly misogynistic, the scene of Jack and the Doctor heading up to headquarters and the whole gun-pointing and interrogation scene were bleedin' amazing and it made my little fangirl heart skip a few beats.

The stuff with the Controller was pretty interesting, and I liked the idea that she was just a victim too, who ironically had absolutely no control of what she was doing or over her thoughts – except for when the Doctor arrived. I liked the actress who played her, and the entire vibe was appropriately mysterious and science fiction-y. It's too bad it was short-lived.

But up to this point, I was enjoying myself, but not necessarily much more than I was when I was watching, say, "The End of the World" or "Father's Day." The episode only really blew me out of the water in its final third. It starts with the reveal that Rose isn't actually dead, but was teleported, and the beam from the Anne Droid's mouth was actually a teleportation beam. I normally don't like "twists" where a character turns out to not be dead after all, but the reveal was well-done enough that I was willing to forgive it. Plus, Rose isn't in that much of a better place than she was before.

Because it's BadWolf Corp. that runs everything. They have been running everything for a hundred years. And BadWolf Corp. are the Daleks.

The Daleks are alive.

And the Daleks are running everything.

ERIH&ERUBU*909WR44H$IHTRBDHFhughYK

FfHUBhgvKHVDkv^6lh

IUH!bwurg7!bgrui9g(37^5%

HOLY BAD WOLF.

AND THEY HAVE ROSE.

Things aren't looking too good for our protagonists, are they? Despite this absolutely amazing, badass, chilling, general BAMF moment that I loved and me hyperventilate with excitement so very much I'm going to go ahead and quote the entire scene:

 _Dalek: We have your associate. You will obey or she will be exterminated!_

 _The Doctor: No._

 _Dalek: Explain yourself!_

 _The Doctor: I said no._

 _Dalek: What is the meaning of the negative?!_

 _The Doctor: It means no._

 _Dalek: But she will be destroyed!_

 _The Doctor: No! Cos this is what_ I'm _gonna do. I'm gonna rescue her! I'm gonna save Rose Tyler from the middle of the Dalek fleet, and then I'm gonna save the Earth, and then, just to finish off, I'm gonna wipe every last_ stinkin' _Dalek out of the sky!_

 _Dalek: But you have no weapons! No defences! No plan!_

 _The Doctor: Yeah. And doesn't that scare you to death?_

Nerdgasm, anyone?

Yep.

nerdgasmnerdgasmnerdgasm *heavy breathing* nerdgasmnerdgasmnerdgasm

Russell T Davies, you may have finally convinced me of your closet genius or something. You'd better not disappoint me with Part Two. Oh, dammit, I'm going to _cry_ , aren't I?

 _ **THOUGHTS AND QUOTES**_

\- Apparently the Doctor has never seen _The Running Man._

\- 'Ladies, your viewing figures just went up.' Oh Jack, never change.

\- Captain Jack hides a gun in his arse. Of course he does.

\- I was really sceptical at first with the idea of returning to the satellite I had never liked in the first place. But the fact that "The Long Game" turned out to kind of be the first in a trilogy is quite cool. And also severely screwed up. Because the Doctor created this world. He's responsible for this Hunger Games-y dystopic, very damaged future. And that's one of many HOLY SHITE twists in this episode.

\- So the laser from the Anne Droid's mouth (love the pun, by the way) turned out to be a teleportation beam, not a disintegrator. So where did that pile of dust come from?

\- 'Archive Six is out of bounds.' 'Do I look like an out of bounds sort of guy?' It's reasons such as these that I have come to love Jack to bits. I need more Jack in my life.

\- The Doctor and Jack's joy at discovering Rose is still alive fills me with happiness.

\- I have to say it one more time… THAT NERDGASM SCENE THO.

\- Nooo only one more episode of Eccleston! I miss him already!


	14. The Parting of the Ways

Doctor Who reviews – Series 1, Episode 13 – "The Parting of the Ways"

I may never love again.

I was told and warned going into this that this show was sad. I was OK with that. I knew how to deal with sad. And when I watched "Father's Day," I thought to myself, _OK, this is what the world meant when it said that Doctor Who was sad._

THIS IS WHAT IT MEANT.

THIS EPISODE.

…and oh, God, probably all the finales after it, am I right? I just hope Moffat doesn't feed off heartbreak like this when he becomes showrunner. (Even though I kinda do. Either way, don't tell me).

"The Parting of the Ways" is a wonderful episode, high in explosive sci-fi, incredible acting, excitement, great twists, and a whole lot of heartbreak. Let's just say I spent quite a while actually sobbing on the sofa while watching this. And the Jammie Dodgers I opened up to enjoy while watching went quite forgotten. I don't even know where to start.

Well, I suppose a good place would be the beginning – the rescue of Rose. I'm really glad the episode didn't focus on the rescue and spend the whole time treating Rose like a damsel in distress. Aside from the fact that that would have become horribly boring and misogynistic, it would have been kind of unoriginal too. And I'll admit I was braced for that. But no, Davies gave me a pleasant surprise by writing off the rescue in the first five minutes of showtime. Some people may think this scene was rushed, but I liked it. I mean, _of course_ the Doctor just casually made the TARDIS materialise around Rose and give her a hug and leave it at that.

Only, of course, it's _not_ that simple. He then steps out to face the Daleks, and after we establish that the TARDIS has force fields and Christopher Eccleston treats us to his atrocious French (not that mine's any better), we get the episode's first spine-chilling moment.

 _The Doctor: Do you know what they call me in the ancient legends of the Dalek Homeworld? The Oncoming Storm. You might've removed all your emotions but I reckon right down deep in your DNA, there's one little spark left, and that's fear. Doesn't it just burn when you face me?_

Jesus, mates. That's… _dark_.

So the Daleks survived the Time War through the Dalek Emperor (of course) who's basically become something of a god amongst the Daleks. I don't really know much about science so I don't know what to make of the plausibility of the details of the Emperor's methods, but they sound convincing enough to me – at least within the realm of sci-fi. Certainly I like the idea that the Daleks have just been spending their time _waiting_ there, on their ship, in the dark, slowly going mad, and the concept of merging their DNA with humans is neat too. I mean, if you're looking for hardcore sci-fi, nerds, look no further. The reactions of the Doctor of course are what make the scene, and Eccleston's disgust combined with horror, fear, and anger, all blended under a guise of mocking is palpable.

I also like the fact that he basically flips off the Emperor as he goes back to the TARDIS. Sure, it's to prepare the people stuck on Satellite Five for the Dalek attack, but the way he treats his exit is delightful as always.

The tears basically started for me as soon as Jack said his goodbye to Rose and the Doctor. It was a short little scene but a fairly beautifully-done one, because it has such a helpless feeling to it. I mean, Jack literally saying, "I guess this is goodbye?" Jack, one of the most faithful characters in the show? I was worried that was the last we'd see of him ever, and while he does have plenty more screen time, it's not with Rose and the Doctor. If anything his kissing of both Rose and the Doctor guaranteed the fact that he was going to die.

Also, that kiss was hot. I mean, Doctor and Rose forever, but the kiss between the boys made me happy inside. Hey, I can have a guilty pleasure can't I?

It's about now that we the audience realise how incredibly bleak the situation is. Everything feels so hopeless, and it starts with Jack's goodbye and sad recruitment of volunteers to fight the Daleks. We've always been quick to assume that the Doctor will be able to get out of any situation, because, well _he's the Doctor_. But what if he doesn't? What if he can't? This is a finale episode, and the fact of the matter is that maybe he _won't_ survive. I think this is why the Doctor's "ability" to "die" and be replaced by someone else makes for such good tension. Aside from being a clever way of keeping the show fresh, it adds more hopelessness: isn't it technically a failure? The Doctor we've gotten so used to will be taken from us, and there's the chance we might lose our beloved companions as well.

Then, of course, it's on to Gutting Scene Number Two, as the Doctor, _realising_ the hopelessness of the situation, decides to trick Rose into going back home. He knows that he will die. It's impossible for him to prepare the Delta Wave in time, and Jack and all his volunteers will never really be able to hold off the Daleks. The Doctor knows that, and I believe Jack knew it too. But he still sees the chance of saving one person, Rose.

His sudden outburst of 'Rose Tyler, you're a genius!' is suspicious and I suppose I knew he was doing _something_ without truly believing it – but I thought he was trying to inspire hope in Rose or something, because he couldn't bear to see her so down, too. I would have been satisfied with that, but instead, he tricks her into going back home. He leaves the TARDIS behind, his only chance of survival or escape, for Rose's sake. And if that's not heartbreaking (or should I say heartsbreaking?) enough, then there's his holographic message to her, recorded at a far more innocent time, just in case:

 _The Doctor: This is important. If this message is activated, then it can only mean one thing. We must be in danger, and I mean fatal. I'm dead, or about to die any second with no chance of escape. And that's okay. Hope it's a good death. But I promised to look after you, and that's what I'm doing. The TARDIS is taking you home. And I bet you're fussing and moaning now,_ typical _. But hold on and just listen a bit more. The TARDIS can never return for me. Emergency Programme One means I'm facing an enemy that should never get their hands on this machine. So this is what you should do: let the TARDIS die. Just let this old box gather dust. No one can open it. No one will even notice it. Let it become a strange little thing standing on a street corner. And over the years, the world will move on and the box will be buried. And if you wanna remember me, then you can do one thing, that's all, one thing. Have a good life. Do that for me, Rose. Have a_ fantastic _life._

Will the tears never stop?

Eccleston's delivery of this monologue, with a grim determination but incredible tenderness, is just incredible.

It's around now that my two main qualms with the episode come into play: one, I did think that all the scenes of the passengers fighting the Daleks felt sort of unnecessary, especially the woman screaming, "YOU LIED TO US THE BULLETS DON'T WORK!" Just like the excess of shots of dead soldiers in "Dalek," this scene worked once but afterwards it felt like overkill, the only exception being Jack's death scene.

Second, Rose's monologue in the chippie. Rose's scenes at home were mostly well-done because they showed just how desperate Rose feels. She can't forget where the Doctor is right now, and she can't very well just sit there and go back to working in the shop. Mickey and Jackie were surprisingly insensitive, and while that was hard to watch, it made me want to slap them both – and I _like_ Jackie. I cringed especially at Jackie's "meh, well, it's two hundred thousand years in the future so who cares?" But what's far worse in Rose's general rudeness. Good acting from Billie, and I understand how Rose feels, but in the end I wanted to slap her too, especially when she said that she had nothing to stay at home for.

I mean. Wow, Rose. Wow.

But that's more or less it. If possible, things get even more bleak, as it turns out the Doctor knows the Delta Wave won't just kill the Daleks – it'll kill the people too. It's a great parallel to his actions in the Time War. What's worse is that the Doctor knew it all along, but he'd been willing to pay that price to have his own victory over the Daleks – even if it meant his death, too. He didn't care, and ironically it took the Emperor's mocking to remind him of his skewed morality. \

 _Dalek Emperor: What are you, Doctor, killer or coward?  
The Doctor: Coward. Any day._

Jack's death is pretty gutting. I'd guessed he might die, of course, but it was a good death. His grim but mocking "I kind of figured that" is a powerful last line. What I think might be sadder still is his final fate. Rose brings him back to life as the Bad Wolf Entity, but she doesn't realise it, and so he gets abandoned there, probably amongst all the bodies, all alone on the Game Station. I got hopeful when he ran towards the TARDIS, and cried out in horror (practically) when it unknowingly faded away without him. Goodbye, Captain Jack. I'll miss you.

Of course what makes this episode, this finale, this season, so brilliant, is the great reveal. Rose is Bad Wolf. Through some clever time travel and loops, _she_ sent the words back into her own timeline to send herself the message that saving the Doctor was possible. _She_ absorbed the time vortex from the TARDIS into herself to do so, and while maybe it's a little over-the-top, it also totally works. The god imagery was meant to be intentional after all, shown to us as the Doctor shouts to her that she can't control life and death. She can see all of time and space, she has become a goddess in her own right. The entire speech is amazing but too long to quote. Seeing her saving the day single-handedly is also a refreshing change.

But even then she couldn't completely save her Doctor.

The Doctor's change is heartbreaking all-round, the way he tries to explain to Rose in his last moments what is going to happen. He tries to distract her, comfort her, make her laugh…

And then there were THESE LAST WORDS:

 _The Doctor: Rose, before I go I just wanna say you were fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. And you know what? So was I._

And then I couldn't even bring myself to care how cheap the special effect of the Doctor exploding into the golden light, quite like a phoenix was, because my heart was completely and utterly broken. The Doctor transforms into a very different-looking man, Barty Crouch Junior aka David Tennant, and at first his first words are enough to make me sceptical as to whether or not he's my beloved Doctor, but then he breaks into this wide, daft grin with the word "Barcelona", and I found myself smiling amid my tears just a little bit.

Goodbye, Ninth Doctor. You will be greatly missed. I'm so very sorry to see you go, because you _were_ absolutely fantastic.

 _ **THOUGHTS AND QUOTES**_

'Do not blaspheme! DO NOT BLASPHEME!'

The idea of the Delta Wave is actually quite clever now that I reflect on it. I was too emotional to really reflect on it while watching, but I do quite like it.

Why did we never learn the Indian lady's name?

'Never doubted him. Never will.' THIS IS WHY I LOVE JACK.

I'm also pretty crushed about Lynda-with-a-y. I liked Lynda.

'I think you need a doctor.' Somehow, Chris Eccleston pulls this line off.

THE KISS. IT FINALLY HAPPENED. MY SHIPPY HEART CAN HARDLY TAKE IT.

'I sang a song and the Daleks ran away.'

Even though I'm an emotional wreck right now, I am optimistic about having David Tennant as the Doctor, not least because I'm an enormous David Tennant fan and have seen him in nearly everything he's done. One of my favourite roles of his is in his breakthrough role of Campbell in the miniseries _Takin' Over the Asylum,_ and I urge any of you who might be fans of his to go see it as it's all on YouTube. I do love Tennant, and I happen to be highly attracted to him. But still. He's not Nine. And he doesn't have the right ears.

Um… *amid violent sniffles* that theme song tho?

Just one last thing – I WILL be posting a complete 'Series 1 report card' after this so stay tuned. After that I will begin posting my reviews for Series 2 starting with some predictions and the Christmas Special.


	15. Series 1 Report Card

Doctor Who reviews – Series 1 report card

 **Part I: The Characters**

 _The Doctor – Christopher Eccleston_  
So it's come to my attention that Christopher Eccleston has not really been fully acknowledged or recognised in the fandom as much as his successors, and I think that's a terrible shame. Sure, I only have 13 episodes of exposure to this show, but the exposure I got was through this bloke, and I loved him. I think it's especially too bad that he doesn't get enough credit because he truly has brought the show back from the dead. He got a generation watching, I'm told, and he got me watching.

Picture the daft audience member (i.e. me) that doesn't know the next thing about the show, or who the Doctor is supposed to be. Eccleston did a bloody good job of letting me know. The Doctor is not a conventional hero, he is not a villain. He's a very compelling main character that's different from most main characters you see on telly these days – he isn't a middle-aged detective whose spouse left them and he isn't a swooning romantic or a trigger-happy action man. The Doctor is a very damaged character, war-torn and angry from being the last of his kind and killing all of his people. He's utterly consumed by guilt and self-loathing, and he exhibits strong signs of PTSD in some episodes. Eccleston does an incredible job of showing this with just the right amount of subtlety.

I think he also physically resembles his character very well, or at least, the dark angle of his character. He's quite tall, he looks around 6 feet to me, and this gives him something of a looming, brooding presence about him. But I say dark angle, because there's a lot more to this character besides angst.

There is of course his love for Rose. I started shipping these two despite the age gap very early on, because it's clear just how much he cares for her. There's always a tenderness in his eyes when he looks at her, and _that kiss scene._ But he's still very reserved and we're never totally sure where they stand in the relationship. I do think that having Rose around has really helped the Doctor begin to move on and he can't forget that.

The Doctor can also have lots of silly moments. He has a delightfully scathing tongue and quick attitude, he's got a good amount of comic pride, and under that angry survivor's guilt is a character that, despite being old, is as delighted in adventure as a kid. He has a lot of manic energy, and his big, wide, stupid grin is really heartwarming.

 _Rose Tyler – Billie Piper  
_ Oh, Rose. Oh, Rose, Rose, Rose. Despite that I've had very little exposure to companion characters, I do think she's excellent companion material. She's got the right amount of bravery and intelligence – those not, of course, as intelligent as the Doctor – and she's quick on her feet. Especially in her first few episodes, she has a charming sort of naïveté, which actress Billie Piper pulls off especially nicely, that doesn't at all detract from her being a strong female character. I mean, she got to kick butt and do most of the day-saving in her very first episode, before she even knew what she was in for! Meanwhile Billie isn't a spectacular actress but she's very lovely and charming all the same. Her strong suit is definitely Rose's light, slightly flirty personality, but she's proven herself capable of the dramatic too – she definitely got to show off plenty in "Father's Day" and in her little speech at the chippie in "The Parting of the Ways."  
My main problem with Rose, really, is that she can honestly be extremely selfish. Just because I dislike Mickey doesn't mean I approve of the way she treated him, and her selfishness isn't even properly addressed as a flaw until "Boom Town" – and even then I feel like audiences are expected to sympathise with her, if not after she runs off ditching Mickey, then immediately afterwards. Plus, she seemed a little too quick too run off with Adam while still technically dating Mickey. While also having left Mickey for the Doctor. (I can forgive her flirting with Jack, because it's John Barrowman. I have a boyfriend and I'd flirt with Jack too.) Let's hope the actions she took in "The Parting of the Ways" will make her grow into someone who's a little more easygoing and selfless in Series 2, like Jack managed to grow.

Even though she's selfish, though, I still have been completely enchanted by Rose and I care about her very deeply. Her love story with the Doctor is just beautiful and has just the right amount of subtlety.

Plus, she's the Bad Wolf Entity. I mean, how cool was that scene?

 _Jack Harkness – John Barrowman  
_ An absolute delight. The hot, hot, HOT John Barrowman is great in playing his character. Jack's not as dynamic as the Doctor or even Rose, but he's still very easy to fall in love with from his habit of flirting with literally everyone to his arrogance, which is grating at first but becomes endearing really quickly. He has incredible chemistry with the Doctor and Rose. Even though I get the impression he and the Doctor row a lot, these three work perfectly together and I'm crushed that Jack may not be around next year. You can also tell just how much he cares for the other two, and I'm sorry he didn't come around sooner. I also think that he goes through a lot of change. His last words to the Doctor – 'I was far better off as a coward' – really reflect that. He started off a coward but grew brave, less selfish to the point of being selfless, and oh, I just _like_ him.

 _Rose's Family: Mickey Smith and Jackie Tyler – Noel Clarke and Camille Coduri  
_ I've said it before, and I'll say it again – I don't really like Mickey. I find his character annoying and flat, and I'm not a huge fan of Noel Clarke as an actor either. Mickey feels like he exists for no other reason that to act as a plot device – to be sort of mistreated by Rose, to ground her back home somewhat and to spend his days pining after her. I feel quite sorry for him, as I started to feel in "Boom Town," but the thing is that Mickey Smith is bland and boring.  
Jackie Tyler, on the other hand, is bleeding awesome. Camille isn't a phenomenal actress, but she portrays her character very well. Although Jackie doesn't do much besides ground Rose home, unlike Mickey, she actually has a personality and generally serves her purpose in a more dynamic way. She also feels a whole lot more necessary. One of the very few good things that "Aliens of London & World War Three" bring to the table is a proper exploration of her character. We know that Jackie loves Rose very much, and it's hard for her to let go of her daughter, especially when she knows how dangerous the travelling can be, but she also wants her to experience some kind of fulfilment, the kind of fulfilment she knows that Rose can't get stuck around the estate in low-paying jobs. She also has nerves of bleedin' steel – like when she slapped the Doctor. Gotta love Jackie.

 **Part II: The Story**

The season's plot arc is very clever, but it doesn't feel prominent enough. Bad Wolf took too long to be acknowledged and people who weren't paying as much attention would probably have been really confused. I know the show is serial, but it would be nice to blend in the serial aspect with a really prominent arc. Not very many subplots except for Rose's romance with Mickey versus the Doctor and her relationship with her mum. This part, I think, played a perfect role in the narrative.

 **Part III: And the Winner Is…**

 _Best Episode_  
Hands down, "The Empty Child & The Doctor Dances." No explanations necessary.

 _Best Guest Star  
_ Easy – Shaun Dingwall as Pete in "Father's Day," for truly making me sympathise with and understand his character over such a short span of time, and for feeling so completely and utterly believable.

 _Best Special Effects  
_ Another win for "The Empty Child & The Doctor Dances!" Mostly just "The Empty Child," though, because of that amazing transition of the mask growing out of Dr Constantine's face.

 _Worst Episode  
_ Another easy one – "Aliens of London & World War Three." Because farting aliens and missiles blowing up Number Ten do not make good storytelling.

 _Worst Special Effects  
_ While it's hard to choose between the hokey Nestene Consciousness and man-eating plastic bin of "Rose" and the cringe-worthy CGI-meets-prosthetics of "Aliens of London," I grant the award of Worst Special Effects to "Rose" because much as I hated the episode, at least the Slitheens had kind of an interesting design.

 **Part IV: Overall**

An overall really strong season of a programme that has not failed to draw me in despite how silly it was half the time. The story arc was pretty clever, and the characters were all excellent. There were a few fumbles in terms of some of the episodes (looking at you, Slitheens) but also lots of groundbreaking ones, including a really strong finale. Phenomenal characterisation and performances.

Final Grade: A-

 **BONUS Part V: Predictions for the Future**

Allow me to state the obvious here – _please do not actually tell me if I'm right or not in regard to any of these!_ Do not even give me hints! Just smile to yourself at either how ignorant I am or how on Earth I guessed the entire next series.

\- Captain Jack will return, but only about halfway through the season.

\- Mickey will formally dump Rose.

\- Rose and the Doctor will eventually wind up kissing formally even though he looks kind of different now.

\- Aliens will invade the Earth in ridiculous ways and it'll be all over the news.

\- A major character will be introduced, playing the same kind of role as Mickey or Jack, but will wind up dying.

\- Some kind of villain will be hunting the Doctor across time and space and this will serve for at least some of the next series' arc.

\- We will actually get to see another planet and not just a space station for our off-Earth adventures.

\- Jackie will have an adventure aboard the TARDIS but won't stick around.


End file.
